ISSUE 394 | December 2010

A Dungeons & D ragons ® Roleplay ing Game Supplement

 ®

C on t en ts
F e at u r e s

5 The E xecutioner Assassin 42 Ba za ar of the Bizarre

By Rodney Thompson By Matt Sernett
Assassins embrace shadow magic and pledge a shard of their souls to the Who knows when a thing thought to exist only in the mind of bards might
Shadowfell to gain their power. We’re pleased to present all 30 levels of the leap into the lives of those around it as readily as any story might fire their
executioner assassin! imaginations? Such is the case with these four legendary items.

25 Totems of the Far Realm 48 Refl avoring Power s

By Jim Auwaerter and Galen Mullins By David Gibson
Throughout the world, there are those who find themselves touched by Every power comes with its own f lavor text that describes how the power
the Far Realm. Most fight back and try to reject it, but the Aberrant Soul looks when it’s used. Those descriptions aren’t set in stone; players can
embraces it to create a totemic link with an aberrant creature. customize them for the theme of the character or feel of the campaign.

33 Channel Divinit y: Corellon 51 Cl ass Acts: Runepriests

By Robert J. Schwalb By Robert J. Schwalb
Corellon is the originator of arcane magic, having seeded its power in the Among the many relics left from the Dawn War are the terrifying Runes of
world. It is said he himself planted the first forests, and the most ancient Unmaking, which the gods locked secreted away to protect mortals. Such
woods still bear his mark in the towering trees. power never stays hidden forever.

55 Unearthed Arcana: Psions

By Peter Schaefer and Robert J. Schwalb
Elder psions believe prolonged contact with another mind invites a serious
danger from cross-personality pollution and merging of consciousness. The
awakened reject these warnings, at great risk to their own psyches.
 COLUMNS

60 Winning R aces: Shif ter s in the Realms 4 Editorial

By Matt Sernett By Steve Winter
Shifters understand the essential beast within. The Spellplague brought the The new character builder reveals interesting
wilderness closer to home, and now shifters are as common as humans in things about D&D players.
some parts of the world, as these new backgrounds attest.
76 A mper sand
By Bill Slavicsek
65 Fiction: Arena of Shadows The Dungeons & Dragons® rewards us with
By Sarah Zettel excitement, intellectual stimulation, and best of
Duke Arisor had become too cavalier about his own safety of late. He was not all, friendship.
the first of Fairhaven’s prosperous citizens to assume that because the city was
78 Confessions of a Full-Time Wiz ard
well-ordered it was essentially safe. It was but one of his mistakes.
By Shelly Mazzanoble
D&D’s “Player-in-Chief ” steps out of her
comfortable wizard’s shoes to try on a pair of
rogue’s sneakers.

82 D&D Alumni: Barrier Pe ak s

By Bart Carroll
Accompanying the all-new Gamma World
roleplaying game will be a thoroughly updated
version of the only adventure ever to feature
On the Cover featherless, gun-toting, cyclops chickens.
Illustration by Alex Aparin

Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dungeon, Dragon, d20, d20 System, Wizards of the Coast, all other Wizards of the Coast product names, and their
respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc., in the U.S.A. and other countries.
This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is
prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. This product is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, places, or events
is purely coincidental. Printed in the U.S.A. ©2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC.
No portion of this work may be reproduced in any form without written permission. For more Dungeons & Dragons articles, adventures, and information, visit www.wizards.
com/dnd
 edit o ria l

D r ag o n
394
D e c e m b e r 2 010 Houston Rockets
Editor-in-Chief

Senior Art Director

Steve Winter

Jon Schindehette
vs. the Transit Board
Web Production Bart Carroll Before I came to work at TSR lo those many years ago, data is interesting but not yet useful.” It will become
I was a newspaper reporter. A “city desk” reporter, to useful with time, and we intend to make the most of
Contributing Authors Jim Auwaerter, David Gibson,
be precise. Instead of covering glamorous sports events it in our effort to keep improving the magazines and
Shelly Mazzanoble, Galen Mullins,
Peter Schaefer, Robert J. Schwalb,
or exciting fires and car crashes, I covered transit com- delivering articles that players will actually use.
Matt Sernett, Sarah Zettel mission meetings and school board elections. I’ve been involved in publishing D&D for a lot of
Try as I might, it was hard to make that type of mate- years, and this is the first time we’ve ever had informa-
Developers Jeremy Crawford,
rial engaging to the average subscriber. Given a choice tion like this. We’ve always had theories based on book
Stephen Schubert
between reading budget proposals for the bus system sales, surveys, anecdotes, and customer feedback in
Editor Miranda Horner or box scores for the NBA finals, most people turn to every form imaginable. Suddenly, we have actual data.
Cover Artist Alex Aparin the sports page. The fact is, though, they’d be better Let me tell you—it’s thrilling.
off reading the transit commission minutes, because All we’re looking at is numbers: how many fighters
Contributing Artists Eric Belisle, Wayne England,
the transit commission is spending their money. If you are there compared to wizards, how many half-elves
Tony Foti, Christine MacTernan,
think your taxes are too high and want to know where compared to humans and minotaurs, how many 15th-
Slawomir Maniak, Jim Nelson,
all that money is going, you won’t find the answer in an level characters compared to 5th-level.
Craig J. Spearing, Matias Tapia,
UDON, Ben Wootten
interview with Moses Malone (look him up, you kids). The core question is how to put the data into
What does that have to do with the Dungeons & action. If fighters outpull druids five to one, does
Publishing Production Angelika Lokotz, Erin Dorries, Dragons® game? that mean we should devote more articles to fighters
Specialists Christopher Tardiff
Just this—every month when we lay out our table of because they’re the most popular and the most likely
Web Development Mark Jindra contents and editorial calendar, we face a tug-of-war to draw readers? Or should we lean more heavily
Executive Producer, Christopher Perkins
between the classes and races that are the most popu- toward druids in an effort to boost their popularity?
D&D Insider lar and draw the most readers, and those that actually We have a lot of work ahead figuring out what it all
need some reinforcement but which aren’t as widely means and how to put it to use. We’re still giddy that
Director of RPG R&D Bill Slavicsek
played. This begs the question of why certain classes for the first time ever, we can base those decisions on
Special Thanks and races are more popular than others—is it because something real. That’s big.
Josh Dillard they have the most feats and powers, or because Let us know where you stand: do you want to
they’re the most appealing fantasy archetypes? We’re see more articles on what’s most popular or what’s
pretty sure it’s a mixture of both, but the ratio is open most in need of a boost? Email your opinion to
to a lot of passionate debate. dndinsider@wizards.com.
The new D&D Character Builder is in a unique posi-
tion to answer some of those questions.
From our position as game designers and magazine
editors, we’re beside ourselves with excitement that the
new D&D Character Builder provides feedback on the
types of characters that players are building. It’s way too
early to draw conclusions—as John Feil cautions, “the
 Assassin
By Rodney Thompson
Illustrations by Eric Belisle, Ben Wootten, and UDON

Assassins embrace shadow magic and pledge a shard of their souls to

the Shadow­fell to gain their power. By replacing a fundamental part
of themselves with a dark ref lection, they can manifest that piece of
shadow to accomplish incredible things. The infusion of shadow magic
allows assassins to identify weak points in an opponent’s defenses so
that with a few moments of study they can reduce the stoutest enemies
to corpses.

An assassin usually keeps his or her profession a secret, since few trust
those who regularly deal in death. Assassins’ guilds provide some measure
of protection, especially in those regions where the study of shadow magic
and assassination as an art form are banned.

As an assassin, you are an outcast. You traded away a part of your soul
for the power of death, and only the most-loyal companions accept your
skills into their midst. Whatever drew you onto the assassin’s path, you
become a trained killer from whom few can escape unharmed.

The type of assassin you can create with this article is the executioner.

TM & © 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC. All rights reserved. D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
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 Assassin

E xecutioner to influence the party’s allies and enemies. An executioner stands as a capable
warrior, even when not performing an assassination. This quality makes the execu-
Martial and Shadow Striker: Your sense of timing, skill with weapons, and tioner an invaluable member of an adventuring party that frequently finds itself
ability to use the shadows as a weapon allow you to strike with lethal effect immersed in conflict.
against an unsuspecting foe. You even mix in some shadow magic when
appropriate.
Key Abilities: Dexterity, Charisma
Creating an E xecutioner
This section walks you through the steps of creating an executioner. As you make
Executioners are more than just assassins for hire. When someone wants to send choices at each step, consider how those choices relate to your character’s personal-
a message through an assassination, an executioner arranges the death in such a ity, history, and goals.
way that the message is delivered with maximum effectiveness. This might mean Consult the three class tables, one for each tier of play, for a summary of what
the quiet poisoning of a crooked you gain as you advance in level.
merchant to warn other merchants to
deal fairly, or it could be a public exe-
Executioner Traits Assassins’ Guild
cution of a tyrannical noble, meant Hit Points: You start with hit points When you create your assassin, you must choose which guild you belong to. The
to frighten the leaders of an area equal to 12 + your Constitution score. executioner assassin has a choice between the Red Scales and the League of Whis-
into treating the common folk more You gain 5 each time you gain a level. pers, though your Dungeon Master might substitute his or her own guild names and
humanely. Though many execution- Bonuses to Defenses: +1 to Fortitude, descriptions for these. Your choice of guild determines some of your weapon profi-
ers perform these deeds at the request +1 to Will ciencies and the kinds of special attack techniques you learn throughout your career.
of a third party, others might do what Healing Surges per Day: 7 + your Con-
they do in order to accomplish per- stitution modifier Red Scales  This order of assassins works to keep society in balance. If
sonal goals related to battling evil or any organization grows too powerful, too corrupt, too wealthy, or too vile, the
Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, leather
enforcing justice. Red Scales weigh and measure the members of that organization and then col-
Weapon Proficiencies: Simple one- lect a payment that they are owed in blood. Though one might call the Red Scales
Executioners rely on their effec-
handed melee, military one-handed idealists, none can say what truly drives them. Rumors abound that this guild’s
tiveness as both infiltrators and
melee, ­garrote, simple ranged, blow- Grandfather of Assassins is touched by some planar entity. They say that his eyes
assassins to get the job done. They
gun, bola, shortbow are orbs of golden fire, a feature he gained, along with his new policies, only after
dabble in shadow magic, which lets
them walk through walls, create arti- Implement Proficiencies: Ki focuses he returned from a journey to the distant East.
ficial shadows, and craft illusions to Class Skills: Acrobatics (Dex), Arcana
hide their intrusion into secure areas. (Int), Athletics (Str), Bluff (Cha), League of Whispers  The very existence of this guild of execution-
They also master the art of poison ­Endurance (Con), Insight (Wis),
ers is often dismissed as myth or urban legend. The League of Whispers keeps its
use, giving them the ability to strike at ­Intimidate (Cha), Perception (Wis),
membership a secret. Although individual members might be known as assassins,
enemies both directly and i­ ndirectly. Stealth (Dex), Streetwise (Cha),
their association with the guild is rarely more than a matter of speculation for
Adventuring executioners tend to Thievery (Dex)
nonmembers. The league keeps its existence a mystery by executing anyone who
perform their assassinations in the discovers the truth. The order holds secret meetings once every full moon, where
Trained Skills: Stealth, plus four more
pursuit of the goals of their fellow the members converge to discuss jobs, trade secrets and tricks, and receive orders
from the list of class skills
adventurers, using such killings from their Grandfather of Assassins.

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 Assassin

Race the use of poisons before you

were wooed into an assassins’
Choose your race. Drow, human, and revenant make good choices for an
guild with promises of wealth
executioner.
and power. Maybe you simply
Drow  Perhaps no race is better suited for the role of executioner than the saw a way to put your talent for
drow. Not only do the drow’s racial bonuses to Dexterity and Charisma match killing to good use and began
the executioner’s ability score preferences, the race’s cloud of darkness power is advancing through the ranks
extremely useful in sowing confusion, providing cover, and warding off interfer- of your assassins’ guild with
ence. Additionally, the drow racial bonuses to Intimidate and Stealth can provide your eyes set on the
the executioner with the ability to bully people out of his or her way or to avoid position of Grandfa-
them entirely. ther Assassin.
As a drow assassin, you can let your experience in the Underdark guide the way Human executioners
in which you perform your duties. You might prefer to stick to the shadows, leav- are usually adherents of
ing public assassinations to others. You might work only at night, giving you an the Raven Queen, guided
advantage over the surface-dwelling races that are all but blinded by the darkness. to do her bidding through
Furthermore, you probably have some experience in the cutthroat world of drow the touch of shadow
politics, so you might tend to seek out targets who have significant political strength magic they possess.
or whose death could serve as the trigger for a significant shift in ­political power. Some human execution-
Drow assassins often worship the Raven Queen, the god of fate and death. Exe- ers worship Erathis,
cutioners directly serve the Raven Queen every time they perform an assassination particularly her aspect
by sending another soul into her domain. Many even believe that they are the of civilization; these
Raven Queen’s weapons in the world and that she moves them around like playing rare individuals turn
pieces on a game board. Other drow executioners worship Sehanine for her con- their weapons on
nection to the moon and night, the time when executioners flourish. any that threaten the
strength of a civiliza-
Human  Human executioners are among the most common assassins in tion, such as insurgents
existence, both because of the sheer number of humans in the world as well as and rebels who try to
the versatility that humans display (a trait executioners need in order to succeed break the bonds of society.
and survive). Use the race’s ability score bonus to boost Dexterity. The extra skill is
useful for expanding the scope of your talents; training in Bluff might get you past Revenant  Revenants
gate guards, or Thievery might disable traps on the magistrate’s windows. have the combination of
When you play a human executioner, consider how your race’s penchant for ver- implacability and physical
satility and ambition played into your decision to become an assassin. Perhaps you prowess needed to flour-
were recruited at a young age, an orphan snatched off the street by a guild of assas- ish as executioners.
sins and given training in a wide variety of weapons and assassination techniques. To accomplish
Alternatively, you might have been a simple thug who dabbled in shadow magic or whatever task

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returned the revenant to life, the skills and powers of an executioner might be just
the edge required to get the job done. The touch of shadow already inherent within
the revenant’s returned form blends and combines perfectly with the shadow
magic employed by the executioner.
Revenants most often follow the Raven Queen, because the Lady of Fate is often
the source of their return to the natural world. Whether willingly or unwillingly,
a revenant must complete the tasks set before him or her by the Raven Queen, for
the goals of death cannot be long denied.
Ability Scores
Determine your ability scores, remembering that an executioner is best served by a
superior Dexterity score. You use Dexterity to make your weapon attacks; a steady
hand and quick reflexes help you exploit an enemy’s weaknesses. Because you rely
on stealth to evade guards and other obstacles, you also need a good Dexterity to
boost your Armor Class and skill checks.
Charisma helps you deceive and distract your foes, so you also want to have a
high score in this ability. The Bluff and Streetwise skills in particular can be cru-
cial when you must throw an enemy off your trail.
You increase two ability scores of your choice by 1 each when you reach cer-
tain levels: 4th, 8th, 14th, 18th, 24th, and 28th. In addition, all your ability scores
increase by 1 at 11th and 21st levels.
Your other ability scores can help shape your character’s background and
interests. If you have a solid Strength score, you are likely the kind of assassin who
leaps from rooftop to rooftop, clambers over walls, and uses physical ability to get
close to your foes. If you have a good Wisdom score, you might instead be a more
thoughtful and studious executioner, one who likes to spend hours and days study-
ing a target before striking with lethal precision.
Skills
At 1st level, you have training in Stealth. In addition, you choose four more trained
skills from the following list of class skills: Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, Bluff,
Endurance, Insight, Intimidate, Perception, Streetwise, and Thievery.
For an executioner, each skill represents a tool that can be used when the
time is right. Executioners have many different skill needs, depending on the sit-
uation. Sometimes they need to be secretive and silent, while at other times they
need to be cunning and street smart. It benefits an executioner to have a wide
Assassin
range of skills so that any situation can be dealt with swiftly without disrupting
the plan.
Your skills help describe your preferred assassination methods. An executioner
who has training in Acrobatics and Athletics might have spent his formative years
dashing across rooftops and might now specialize in second-story intrusions and
assassinations in a target’s lair. Alternatively, an executioner with training in Bluff
and Streetwise might be a master of blending in. Such assassins spend years learn-
ing the mannerisms and habits of a variety of different cultures so that they can
range far and wide in the pursuit of a target.
Class Features and Powers
Note which class features and powers you gain at 1st level, as specified on the
Executioner Heroic Tier table on page 6.
For your guild attacks, decide whether you want to fight with melee or ranged
weapons. If you want to fight close up and personal, choose Red Scales and the
powers associated with that guild. If you want to attack from a distance, select
League of Whispers and the powers connected to that guild. You also have a choice
of two types of poison that you are familiar with.
Feats
Choose one feat at 1st level. You gain an additional feat at every even-numbered
level, plus a feat at 11th and 21st levels.
Feats from the quick reaction ­category are a good choice for ref lecting the
executioner’s ability to react and move quickly in any unexpected situation.
Similarly, feats from the weapon training category can give the assassin an edge
in combat. Assassins prefer melee weapons and those that can be easily used at
close range, where they are most ­effective. Because ­executioners can use shields,
consider taking the expertise feat that applies to a one-handed weapon, such as a
dagger (light blades). The Master at Arms feat is also a great choice if you plan to
use ­multiple weapons.
Additionally, many executioners spend a great deal of time studying and prac-
ticing their abilities. Consider taking feats from the learning and lore category,
particularly those that enhance Athletics, Bluff, and Stealth, all of which can be
extremely useful to executioners.
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Equipment
You have proficiency with the ­following types of armor: cloth and leather. You
can also use light shields. You have proficiency with the following weapons and
weapon types: simple one-handed melee, military one-handed melee, garrote,
simple ranged, blowgun, bola, shortbow.
You have 100 gp to buy your starting equipment. Begin by purchasing a poi-
soner’s kit, which you will need to create the poisons you use. Next, buy a suit of
leather armor, a light shield, and a one-handed weapon. A dagger is a good choice
for a melee weapon because it is small, easy to conceal, and lightweight. A spear is
also a good choice for an ­executioner who does not need to hide his weapon, since
its larger damage die will make you a bit more dangerous. Likewise, be sure to pur-
chase the weapons associated with your guild attacks.
You also want a ki focus, an item through which you channel shadow magic.
Once you have a magic ki focus, you will be able to confer its enhancement bonus
to your arsenal of weapons.
Assassin Tools
All assassins have certain tools of their trade that they specialize in. Described
below are three weapons and a new item of gear for use with the executioner.
Blowgun: This long, tubular weapon is used by blowing on one end. It can
launch darts and other agents.
Bola: Consisting of two or three weighted spheres connected by cord, bolas
tangle up opponents, but the spheres are also strong enough to inflict injuries.
Garrote: This strangling tool is a length of wire or knotted rope with handles
at either end.
Poisoner’s Kit: A poisoner’s kit is an essential part of the assassin’s reper-
toire. It contains the base components and tools needed to craft poisons. Cost
10 gp; weight 1 lb.
Assassin
Superior melee weapons
Two-Handed
Weapon Prof. Damage Range Price Weight Prop. Group
Garrote* +3 1d4 — 1 gp 1 lb. HC, S Garrote
*The only attacks that you can make with a garrote are ones that require or allow its
use. Also, if you are holding a garrote in both hands, you can use the grab action even
without a hand free. If the grab hits, the target takes 1[W] damage from the garrote.
superior ranged weapons
One-Handed
Weapon Prof. Damage Range Price Weight Prop. Group
Bola +3 1d4 4/8 5 gp 2 lb. LT Flail
Two-Handed
Weapon Prof. Damage Range Price Weight Prop. Group
Blowgun +3 1d4 5/10 5 gp 2 lb. LM, S Blowgun
Defenses and Hit Points
Calculate your defenses using your ability modifiers and the bonus for your char-
acter’s armor and shield. In addition, you gain a +1 bonus to Fortitude and a +1
bonus to Will.
You start with hit points equal to 12 + your Constitution score. You gain 5 hit
points each time you gain a level. You have a number of healing surges per day
equal to 7 + your Constitution modifier.
Alignment and Final Details
At this point, you should have all the mechanical details of your character deter-
mined. There are a few more decisions to make.
Pick an alignment, which represents a basic outlook on the world that helps
shape how your character acts. Do you execute only those who are perpetrating
evil on the world? If so, lawful good or good is the best match for your character. If
you perform executions only to serve your own needs and wants, then unaligned is
a good choice.
Finally, check with your DM to see where you are from in the campaign setting,
the people you already know, and what your current situation is. It also helps to
spend a few minutes working out how or if you know the other players’ characters.
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 Assassin

Heroic E xecutioner Level 1: Attack Finesse

As your career begins, you work on the basic skills that allow you to evade notice For the executioner, speed, agility, and precision are more important than muscle.
and deliver killing strikes. Although you might begin by assassinating goblin chiefs An executioner learns how to handle any weapon with a finesse that lends itself to
and orc warlords, the abilities you develop in the heroic tier set the stage for far more accurate strikes.
greater accomplishments. Benefit: You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for your melee basic attacks.
In addition, once per turn you can deal 1d8 extra damage with a weapon attack
Executioner Heroic Tier using a one-handed weapon, a garrote, a blowgun, or a shortbow. The extra damage
Total Feats increases to 2d8 at 11th level and 3d8 at 21st level.
XP Level Known Class Features and Powers
0 1 1 Versatile Defense
Attack Finesse
Level 1: Guild Attacks
Guild Attacks As a member of either the Red Scales or the League of Whispers, you have learned
Assassin’s strike various deadly attack techniques. At the start of your career, you can use the tech-
Quick Swap niques associated with your guild.
Poison Use


1,000
2,250
2
3
+1
—
Utility power
Death Attack
Red Scales
3,750 4 +1 Ability score increase The Red Scales are considered by many to be the masters of close-quarters combat.
Nimble Drop The techniques that their guild members learn combine decades of study of both
5,500 5 — Improved Poison Use martial arts and common assassination techniques, giving them an edge when
7,500 6 +1 Utility power they are unarmed, wielding a dagger, or using a garrote.
10,000 7 — Hidden stab Benefit: You gain the powers garrote strangle, poisoned dagger, and quick lunge.
13,000 8 +1 Ability score increase
Flawless Disguise Garrote Strangle  The garrote is a favorite weapon for silent executions. It
16,500 9 — Improved Poison Use
gives the assassin a silent and efficient weapon for use on the unsuspecting. Though
20,500 10 +1 Utility power
it is difficult to use a garrote on someone who is aware of its presence, assassins have
been known to lie in wait for just the right moment when their target wanders too
Level 1: Versatile Defense close, then reach out to strangle the target before he or she can react.
Ever watchful, an executioner practices techniques for staying alive. You have
learned a mode of defense tailored to your fighting style.
Benefit: You choose a bonus feat, either Shield Proficiency: Light or Two- Basic Attacks
Weapon Defense. You don’t have to meet the feat’s prerequisite. As an assassin, you make most of your attacks using basic attacks. Your guild
attacks and poisons are more situational, giving you a diverse array of tools
in battle.

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 Assassin

Garrote Strangle Assassin Attack Quick Lunge Assassin Attack

You wait for the perfect moment when your foe is within reach, then strangle it with your garrote.
At-Will F Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Requirement: You must use this power with a garrote.
Effect: You shift up to 2 squares before the attack.
Target: One creature you are hidden from
Attack: Dexterity vs. Reflex
Hit: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier damage, and the target is grabbed until the end of your
next turn. While the grab persists, the target takes a –2 penalty to attack rolls against
you and cannot speak, and you cannot make other attacks.
Level 21: 4[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
Sustain Standard: The grab persists, and the target takes 2[W] + your Dexterity modifier
damage.
Level 21: 4[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
Poisoned Dagger  The dagger’s narrow blade excels at piercing armor
and slipping through gaps in defenses, making it a good candidate for delivering
poisons. Since only a slight nick is required to administer a poison, many assassins
carry daggers for just this purpose, even when using some other weapon as their
primary one.
You lunge forward quickly, upending your foe with a kick and a thrust of your weapon.
At-Will F Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee 1
Effect: You shift 1 square before the attack.
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] damage, and you knock the target prone. You can then shift 1 square back to
your starting position.
Level 21: 2[W] damage.
League of Whispers
Members of the League of Whispers specialize in the use of a variety of ranged
weapons. This training allows them to perform special tricks that can help them
execute a target or escape the local authorities. League members undergo training
with bolas, hand crossbows, and blowguns to give them an edge against enemies
both near and far. Like other executioners, members of the League are trained in
the use of multiple weapons and usually carry a variety of weapons with which
they are skilled.
Benefit: You gain the powers bola takedown, precision dart, and quick shot.

Poisoned Dagger Assassin Attack

Bola Takedown  The proper application of bolas can bring down even
Your piercing blade delivers poisons quickly and cleanly, making them difficult to shake off. the most nimble of enemies. Executioners frequently use bolas to keep their tar-
At-Will F Martial, Weapon gets from escaping, since most creatures tend to flee from their killers on sight.
Standard Action Melee weapon
Requirement: You must use this power with a dagger.
However, this particular technique, which uses a specialized throwing motion to
Target: One creature ensure maximum extension of the weapon, is also sometimes used to trip up pur-
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC suit when fleeing from the scene of an execution.
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage. If you deliver an assassin poison with this attack,
the target takes a –4 penalty to its first saving throw, if any, against the poison’s effect.
Level 21: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
Bola Takedown Assassin Attack
Effect: If the dagger has an assassin poison on it that is normally delivered on a hit, you You whirl your bola over your head and take careful aim before hurling it at a foe’s legs.
can deliver that poison to the target even if the attack misses. At-Will F Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Ranged weapon
Quick Lunge  You focus some of your training on the speed of your move- Requirement: You must use this power with a bola.
Target: One creature
ments in combat. This particular attack technique allows you to lash out quickly
Attack: Dexterity vs. Reflex
at an enemy that believes itself to be out of your reach. You can not only attack a Hit: 1[W] damage, and the target falls prone.
quarry that would normally be protected by an intervening bodyguard, but you Level 21: 2[W] damage.
can also upend a foe to prevent its retreat.

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 Assassin

Precision Dart  Though one of the weaker weapons in the executioner’s
repertoire, the blowgun is an excellent tool for ensuring that a poison is delivered
directly to an opponent and not turned aside by armor that can deflect a dagger.
This technique gives you pinpoint accuracy with the blowgun. A well-placed dart
can even be lethal to weaker foes if it punctures a vital area.
Precision Dart Assassin Attack
The poisoned dart flies from your blowgun with unerring accuracy.
At-Will F Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Ranged weapon
Requirement: You must use this power with a blowgun.
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. Reflex
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage. If you deliver an assassin poison with this attack,
the target takes a –4 penalty to its first saving throw, if any, against the poison’s effect.
Level 21: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
Effect: If the ammunition has an assassin poison on it that is normally delivered on a hit,
you can deliver that poison to the target even if the attack misses.
Quick Shot  The hand crossbow is one of the great equalizers when it
comes to lethal ranged combat. Executioners often prefer to perform most of their
assassinations up close, which can sometimes bring the assassin too close to other
enemies. This particular quick-fire technique uses the hand crossbow to surprise
and stagger nearby enemies long enough for the executioner to escape.
Quick Shot Assassin Attack
You loose a quick bolt from your crossbow, thereby creating a momentary opening for your escape.
At-Will F Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Ranged 1
Requirement: You must use this power with a hand crossbow.
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
Level 21: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
Effect: You shift up to 2 squares.
Special: Using this power doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks.
Level 1: Assassin’s Strike
The heart of the executioner’s ability to take down a foe is the assassin’s strike tech-
nique. An executioner often has only one chance to eliminate an enemy. Once the
element of surprise is lost, bodyguards (or even targets themselves, if capable) can
interfere with the mission, leaving the target regretfully alive. This powerful tech-
nique represents the intersection of the assassin’s knowledge of vital areas of the
body, extreme mastery of weapons, and ability to throw everything he has into a
single formidable attack. The executioner must wait for the exact right moment to
strike, but when he does, this attack can slay a target instantly.
Benefit: You gain the assassin’s strike power.
Assassin’s Strike Assassin Attack
You strike with precision at the exact right moment, landing an attack that can be instantly fatal.
Encounter F Martial
No Action Personal
Trigger: You hit a creature within 5 squares of you with an attack using a weapon.
Target: The creature you hit
Effect: The target takes 1d10 extra damage from the triggering attack. If the target is
helpless, this damage is maximized.
Level 3: 2d10 extra damage.
Level 7: 3d10 extra damage.
Level 13: 4d10 extra damage.
Level 17: 5d10 extra damage.
Level 23: 6d10 extra damage.
Level 27: 7d10 extra damage.
Special: Nothing but a short or an extended rest can allow you to regain the use
of this power.
Level 1: Quick Swap
Your weapons are extensions of your body. When you are changing your focus
from nearby foes to distant enemies, you can switch between your melee and
ranged weapons with ease.
Benefit: Once during each of your turns, you can take a free action to draw or
stow a weapon and then draw another weapon.

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Level 1: Poison Use
Executioners have a long history with poison. All become masters at mixing their
own ­poisons. For most assassins, poison is only one of their many weapons. Most
of the poisons used by executioners are merely the set-up for a later attack, a pre-
cursor to ensure that the target won’t be able to stop the executioner once the
assassination attempt begins in earnest.
Many poisons are outlawed in civilized realms, so executioners learn to craft
simple, unstable venoms that quickly break down into inert components. In this
manner, an assassin can travel with a seemingly innocent array of materials. When
it is time to strike, the executioner quickly crafts a poison as needed. Because
the poison is unstable, it decays rapidly and leaves no incriminating evidence if
unused. A shrewd executioner can maintain an innocent facade even in the face of
a thorough search of his or her person and quarters.
Benefit: You learn the recipes for two 1st-level assassin poisons of your choice.
During an extended rest, you can prepare one vial of a 1st-level assassin poison.
You must know the poison’s recipe and have a poisoner’s kit. The vial con-
tains a single use of the poison, which expires if it isn’t used before the start of
your next extended rest. An item can benefit from the effects of only one assas-
sin poison at a time.
Only you can use your assassin poisons, and you are immune to the effects of
the ones you create.
Bloodroot Poison  The poison created from the oil of the bloodroot
plant causes a temporary fever and weakening of the body. Bloodroot (named for
the deep crimson color of the root) is a relatively common plant often mistaken for
other, harmless plants that grow nearby. The poison is favored by assassins who
seek to knock an enemy off balance and disorient it before the lethal strike.
Bloodroot Poison Level 1
This crimson liquid causes fever and disorientation.
Assassin Poison
Power (Consumable F Poison): Minor Action. You apply the poison to your melee
weapon or one piece of your ammunition. During this encounter, the next creature you
hit with a weapon attack using the poisoned item takes 6 extra poison damage, and it
is dazed (save ends).
Power (Consumable F Poison): Minor Action. You pour the poison into a drink or onto
a plate of food. The first creature to consume the food or drink within the next hour is
dazed until the end of its next extended rest.
Assassin
Carrion Crawler Brain Juice  Carrion crawler brain juice is exactly
what its name claims: a poison derived from the brains of vicious carrion crawlers,
which makes it a difficult substance to harvest. Carrion crawler brain juice makes
the body of the target sluggish as the poison attacks muscles and essential tissues
that help the body move. Longer exposure to brain juice causes a form of paralysis
that makes it impossible for the victim to move a significant distance.
Carrion Crawler Brain Juice Level 1
Purple, oily carrion crawler brain juice can cause sluggishness and paralysis.
Assassin Poison
Power (Consumable F Poison): Minor Action. You apply the poison to your melee
weapon or five pieces of your ammunition. Until the end of the encounter, whenever
you hit a creature with a weapon attack using the poisoned item, the target takes 4
extra poison damage, and it is slowed until the end of your next turn.
Power (Consumable F Poison): Minor Action. You apply the poison to a single handheld
object. Within the next hour, the first creature other than you to hold or wear the object
for more than 1 minute is immobilized until the end of its next extended rest.
Greenblood Oil  Named for its color and thickness, greenblood oil is a
viscous poison derived from poisonous plants that grow deep in primeval forests.
This combination of oils from several different sources has medicinal uses: It
breaks up dangerous blood clots and can be used to help drain infections from the
body. Assassins, however, use greenblood oil to make it more difficult for the body
to heal. This poison is often used to make a target more vulnerable to harm rather
than by harming directly. For example, an assassin might pour greenblood oil over
a target’s food early in the day before performing a very public assassination, to
ensure that the victim cannot be magically healed once the attack takes place.
Greenblood Oil Level 1
This thick, green oil has the consistency of blood and makes enemies more susceptible to
grievous injuries.
Assassin Poison
Power (Consumable F Poison): Minor Action. You apply the poison to your melee
weapon or one piece of your ammunition. During this encounter, the next enemy you
hit with a weapon attack using the poisoned item takes 10 extra poison damage, and
it cannot regain hit points (save ends).
Power (Consumable F Poison): Minor Action. You pour the poison into a drink or onto a
plate of food. The first creature to consume the food or drink within the next hour takes
a –4 penalty to saving throws and cannot regain hit points until the end of its next
extended rest.
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Id Moss Powder  Id moss grows primarily in caves and crevasses in the
earth, particularly in places where the sun never reaches. Most forest-dwelling
people know to avoid consuming id moss even in desperate situations, because
the moss causes mental trauma and eventually insanity. When crushed into a
fine powder, id moss powder can be inhaled, allowing it to attack the mind more
quickly.
Id Moss Powder Level 1
This green powder causes mental anguish and eventually insanity.
Assassin Poison
Power (Consumable F Implement, Poison, Psychic): Standard Action. Effect: You make
the following attack.
Ranged 5
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. Reflex
Hit: 2d10 + Dexterity modifier poison damage, and ongoing 5 psychic damage (save
ends).
Each Failed Saving Throw: The target makes a basic attack as a free action against its
nearest ally.
Miss: Half damage, and ongoing 5 psychic damage (save ends).
Special: If the DM allows it, a creature reduced to 0 hit points by this poison is not
killed, but is instead driven permanently insane.
Power (Consumable): Standard Action. You place the poison in a closed container, such
as a chest or a jewelry box. Make the attack above against the first creature to open
the container within the next hour.
Nitharit Poison  One of the few slow-acting poisons in the assassin’s rep-
ertoire, nitharit poison gradually breaks down a creature’s natural defenses against
toxins and eventually turns those defenses against the poisoned creature. Nitharit
poison is often used as a precursor to weaken a target before a second poisoning
assault. For example, an assassin might put nitharit poison in a magistrate’s wine,
then later in the evening return to finish the job with a stronger poison once the
target’s body is in no shape to fight it off.
Assassin
Nitharit Poison Level 1
This clear, odorless, tasteless liquid slowly turns a creature’s natural defenses against poison
into a harmful weapon.
Assassin Poison
Power (Consumable F Poison): Minor Action. You apply the poison to your melee
weapon or five pieces of your ammunition. Until the end of the encounter, when
you hit a creature with a weapon attack using the poisoned item, the creature takes
ongoing 2 poison damage (save ends).
First Failed Saving Throw: The creature instead takes ongoing 5 poison damage
(save ends).
Power (Consumable F Poison): Minor Action. You apply the poison to a handheld object.
Within the next hour, the first creature other than you to hold or wear the object for
more than 1 minute gains vulnerable 5 poison and loses all poison immunity and
resistance until the end of its next extended rest.
special Poisons
Several of the poisons described here have special effects that begin with
“If the DM allows it, a creature reduced to 0 hit points by this poison is not
killed, but . . .”
These are discretionary effects in that they call for some interpretation
by the players and the DM. For example, id moss powder causes permanent
insanity. We don’t define what that means; it’s up to you. You might decide
that the target’s Intelligence and Wisdom scores drop to 1 with no hope of
recovery, or that it regains its former mental capacity but is forever twisted in
some psychotic way. Likewise, the extent of the visible scarring caused by ungol
dust is open to interpretation. Do the scars cover the victim’s whole body or
only its face? Do they affect Charisma?
All of this assumes, of course, that the assassin leaves the target alive at 0
hit points rather than just finishing it off.
If these poisons are ever used against fellow player characters, the DM
should consider allowing the “permanent” effects to be removed through
quests, long-lost rituals, or some other adventurous process.
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Ungol Dust  Ungol dust is a black powder made of the crushed remains of
dried-up spiders and scorpions that is so fine that one errant breath can blow away
an entire dose. Most of those who craft this poison wear masks to ensure that they
do not accidentally disperse—or inhale—the dust before packing it into small, easily
shattered pellets. When ungol dust comes into contact with flesh or other living
material, it becomes highly corrosive.
Ungol Dust Level 1
This black powder dissolves organic material.
Assassin Poison
Power (Consumable F Acid, Implement, Poison): Standard Action. Effect: You make
the following attack.
Ranged 5
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. Reflex
Hit: 3d8 + Dexterity modifier poison damage, and ongoing 5 acid damage (save ends).
Miss: Half damage, and ongoing 5 acid damage (save ends).
Special: If the DM allows it, a creature reduced to 0 hit points by this poison is not
killed, but is instead knocked unconscious until the end of the encounter, and it is
permanently and visibly scarred.
Power (Consumable): Standard Action. You place the ungol dust in a closed container,
such as a chest or a jewelry box. Make the attack above against the first creature to
open the container within the next hour.
Level 2: Utility Power
Part of being an assassin is knowing which tool to use in any situation. Some execu-
tioners master the power of shadow magic early to gain a supernatural edge over
their targets. Others simply refine their natural skills, pushing themselves to peak
performance.
Benefit: You gain a 2nd-level assassin utility power of your choice.
Distracting Illusion  Mastering the ability to weave shadow magic to
create illusions can be a useful skill for the assassin who wants to focus on subterfuge
and misdirection. The images created by distracting illusion won’t fool anyone who
examines them closely or interacts with them. Instead, these illusions are meant to
cover up the assassin’s actions. For example, an assassin might create an illusion of
the guard that the assassin just killed, standing at his assigned post, in order to fool
observers into thinking the guard is still on duty. Alternatively, an assassin might lure
Assassin
his or her quarry out into the open by creating an illusion of a trusted companion
beckoning the target urgently to where the assassin lurks in the shadows.
Distracting Illusion Assassin Utility 2
The image of a creature flickers and then solidifies as you craft an illusion meant to cover your
dark deeds.
Encounter F Illusion, Shadow
Minor Action Close burst 10
Effect: You create the illusion of a Medium creature of your choice in an unoccupied square
in the burst. The illusion is silent but moves and acts as though it was the creature it
appears to be. Creatures that closely examine the illusion can make an Insight check to
discover the illusion for what it really is. The check is opposed by a Bluff check that you
make when you create the illusion. The illusion lasts until the end of your next turn.
Sustain Minor: The illusion persists until the end of your next turn, and you can move it
up to 6 squares.
Silent Stalker  You have learned to quiet your steps and keep your equip-
ment from making noise. As soon as your enemies turn their backs on you, you can
approach quickly and quietly, using your enemy’s body to shield yourself from sight.
Silent Stalker Assassin Utility 2
You pad quietly toward your victim, unseen and unheard.
At-Will F Martial
Move Action Personal
Requirement: You must be hidden.
Effect: You move up to your speed to a square within 2 squares of an enemy. You remain
hidden until the end of this turn or until you make an attack.
Summon the Mists  Summon the mists is a simple power that provides
rudimentary cover against observation. It allows you to call up a bank of fog that
rolls out from the shadows to conceal your actions. When used properly, it usually
draws little attention from observers because the fog appears to be perfectly natu-
ral even as it conceals dark deeds.
Summon the Mists Assassin Utility 2
A thick fog rises around you.
Daily F Shadow, Zone
Minor Action Close burst 5
Effect: The burst creates a zone of lightly obscured squares that lasts until the end of
the encounter.
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Level 3: Death Attack
Executioners know how to ensure that the job gets done. You rarely leave your ene-
mies on the brink of death and know how to drive your weapon just a little deeper
to turn a grave wound into a killing blow.
Benefit: When you hit an enemy with a melee or a ranged attack that deals
damage, you can choose to reduce the enemy to 0 hit points automatically if it has
10 hit points or fewer after the damage is dealt.
Level 4: Ability Score Increase
Shadow is becoming so ingrained within you that it infuses your essential nature
and makes you more than you were before.
Benefit: You increase two ability scores of your choice by 1.
Level 4: Nimble Drop
Whether high on the rooftops or lurking along the edge of a cliff, you often find
yourself using hiding places that are perched upon great heights. You know how to
soften a fall so that you can leap into action from your lofty lair.
Benefit: When you take falling damage, you can take a free action to reduce the
damage by 6 + your level. If this reduces the damage to 0, you don’t fall prone.
Level 5: Improved Poison Use
Your confidence in your skills as a maker of poisons grows, as does your speed in
doing so. Even when handling deadly toxins, your hand remains steady, and your
eye for mixtures gives you the ability to accomplish more in a short time.
Benefit: You learn the recipe for another 1st-level assassin poison of your
choice. During an extended rest, you can now prepare two vials of 1st-level assas-
sin poison.
Level 6: Utility Power
You have learned to master a more advanced assassination technique, ranging
from improved skill in shadow magic to practical experience in staying out of sight.
Benefit: You gain a new assassin utility power of your level or lower.
Assassin
Ghost of the Rooftops  Streets and alleyways are filled with city
guards and other witnesses, so some executioners learn the art of dancing from
roof to roof with speed and precision. For such a character, clearing the distance
between buildings or scaling a palace wall is like taking a stroll around the corner.
Ghost of the Rooftops Assassin Utility 6
Your skill at climbing and leaping allows you to move across the rooftops unhindered.
At-Will (Special) F Martial
Move Action Personal
Effect: You climb or make a long jump, moving a number of squares up to your speed,
without making an Athletics check.
Special: You can use this power only once per round.
Darkness  Not every execution can be performed with only your victim
present. Bodyguards, servants, and innocent bystanders sometimes interfere with
assassinations. Darkness allows you to sow confusion by creating an area of pure,
magical darkness that no light can penetrate. Those in the area of its effect cannot
see you performing your lethal task. Some executioners also use this power to
conceal their hiding places from outside observers; a well-placed darkness effect
can block the light of lamps and candles, making a room in an inn appear dark to
observers who might be hunting the assassin just outside the window.
Darkness Assassin Utility 6
A cloud of pure shadow expands from you, shrouding the area in darkness.
Daily F Shadow, Zone
Minor Action Close burst 2
Effect: The burst creates a zone that lasts until the end of your next turn. To creatures
other than you, the zone is totally obscured and blocks line of sight.
Sustain Minor: The zone persists until the end of your next turn. You must be in the zone
to sustain it.
Vanish  A quick escape is one of the most valued tools in your repertoire.
This power ensures that you can disappear without a trace, at least long enough
to retreat without being pursued. It envelops you in a cloak of invisibility, then
teleports you a short distance to make sure that your enemies are completely
confounded.
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Vanish Assassin Utility 6
Without warning you disappear from the sight of all around you. By the time you reappear, you
are far from where you once stood.
Encounter F Shadow, Teleportation
Immediate Reaction Personal
Trigger: You are hit by an attack.
Effect: You become invisible until the start of your next turn, and you teleport up to
your speed.
Level 7: Hidden Stab
An assassin’s target is not often easy prey. Assassins are usually tasked with taking
down enemies that have powerful spells, years of training, and extensive experi-
ence in avoiding assassination attempts. However, the most skilled assassins are
those who can land their devastating strikes on these powerful enemies, and most
successful assassins use this technique to catch a well-defended enemy off guard
and then land a killing blow.
Benefit: You gain the hidden stab power.
Hidden Stab Assassin Attack
With a quick grab from behind, you cause your enemy to lower its defenses, allowing you to
land a deadly blow even as they struggle to break free.
At-Will F Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee 1
Requirement: You must have a hand free and use this power with a light blade.
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] damage, and the target is grabbed until the end of your next turn. While the
grab persists, the target grants combat advantage, and it takes a –2 penalty to its first
escape attempt. If you make a melee weapon attack against the target before the grab
ends and your assassin’s strike is not expended, you can use that power against the
target even if the attack misses.
Level 21: 2[W] damage.
Sustain Minor: The grab persists until the end of your next turn.
Level 8: Ability Score Increase
You are long accustomed now to the darkness within you, and your body and mind
become more formidable.
Benefit: You increase two ability scores of your choice by 1.
Assassin
Level 8: Flawless Disguise
Deception is a key part of the executioner’s ability to reach his or her targets with-
out impediment. Because infiltration is often necessary for gaining access to a
target, executioners learn to disguise themselves well enough to blend in with their
surroundings. You might pass yourself off as a servant to infiltrate the local lord’s
manor or appear as a merchant’s cook to get into his dining chambers.
Benefit: During a short rest, you can craft an excellent disguise that makes
you appear to be another humanoid of your size (either a specific person or a non-
descript member of a race or an organization). Any creature that attempts to see
through your ruse makes an Insight check opposed by your Bluff check, with a +5
bonus to your check. You must use a disguise kit to create the disguise.
Level 9: Improved Poison Use
The longer you work with your poisons, the more you learn about them. Whether
you pick up the knowledge from a fellow assassin, pay a local apothecary for new
instruction, or simply learn of new poisons by trial and error, your repertoire of
poisons continues to grow.
Benefit: You learn the recipe for another 1st-level assassin poison of your
choice. During an extended rest, you can now prepare three vials of 1st-level assas-
sin poison.
Level 10: Utility Power
At the peak of your power in the heroic tier, your mastery of shadow magic gives
you access to a variety of tools that you can use to perform your executions without
being obstructed or captured.
Benefit: You gain a new assassin utility power of your level or lower.
Death Mark  Executioners often mark their targets in some way before the
assassination occurs. This power creates a singed, black sigil somewhere on the
target’s body that pulses with shadow magic. This mark creates a bond between
the executioner and the target that gives the executioner the ability to detect the
target with unerring accuracy. Once a death mark is placed, the assassin is rarely far
behind.
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Death Mark Assassin Utility 10
A black mark appears on the target’s form, appearing to be burned in with a hot iron. It warns
of impending death.
Daily F Shadow
Minor Action Close burst 5
Target: One creature in the burst
Effect: Until the end of your next extended rest, you always know the direction and
approximate distance to the target. In addition, the target cannot become invisible
to you.
Eyes Unseen  A useful power that has saved the lives of many an execu-
tioner, eyes unseen allows the user to peer through walls, around corners, and even
through ceilings and floors to see what lies ahead. It creates a small, invisible
sensor crafted by shadow magic that can appear within a small radius and pass
visions back to the assassin. Many executioners use eyes unseen to search for guards,
keep an eye on pursuers, or reveal traps and ambushes before walking into them.
Eyes Unseen Assassin Utility 10
You conjure a sensor of shadow that appears nearby and allows you to see through walls and
other barriers.
Encounter F Shadow
Minor Action Personal
Effect: Choose a square within 5 squares of you, even a square on the other side of
blocking terrain. Until the end of your next turn, you can see and hear from that
square, as well as from your own.
Walk Through Shadow  When you use walk through shadow, you
create a brief, flickering shadow that whisks you quickly from one place to another.
Unlike some other teleportation abilities, walk through shadow can take the user into
unknown places and allows him or her to bypass walls, doors, and other barriers
with a blind jump.
Walk Through Shadow Assassin Utility 10
A swirling mass of shadow surrounds you before transporting you instantaneously
a short distance.
Encounter F Shadow, Teleportation
Move Action Personal
Effect: You teleport up to 5 squares. You do not need line of sight to the destination space.
If you try to teleport into a space that you cannot occupy, the teleportation is negated.
Assassin
Paragon E xecutioner
Executioners who reach the paragon tier have proven themselves more than
capable of carrying out assassinations (both clandestine and public) without
being caught or killed themselves. For you, simple political assassinations and
hired killings begin to lose their luster, because city watchmen or the bodyguards
of local merchants rarely challenge your skills. Your abilities are better utilized
stalking more powerful quarry—those that threaten the entire world, if not the
planes themselves.
Paragon Path: Guild Executioner
At 11th level, your executioner takes on a paragon path, typically the guild execu-
tioner paragon path. As a member of a powerful guild, you are afforded training
and education in the killing arts that surpasses the prowess of most who work
alone. You learn secret fighting techniques, gain access to experts in the field of
poison use, and rise through the ranks of your guild as your skills progress. Per-
haps one day you will even challenge the Grandfather of Assassins for control of
the guild.
Prerequisite: Only an executioner can take this paragon path.
Executioner paragon Tier
Total Feats
XP Level Known Class Features and Powers
26,000 11 +1 Ability score increase
Blindside [guild executioner]
Devastating Assassination [guild executioner]
Executioner’s Action [guild executioner]
32,000 12 +1 Daring escape [guild executioner]
39,000 13 — Improved Death Attack
47,000 14 +1 Ability score increase
57,000 15 — Improved Poison Use
69,000 16 +1 Vital Strike [guild executioner]
Untraceable step
83,000 17 — Shadow coffin
99,000 18 +1 Ability score increase
119,000 19 — Improved Poison Use
143,000 20 +1 Poisoner’s Secrets [guild executioner]
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Level 11: Ability Score Increase
As if to prepare you for the paragon tier, your body and mind gird themselves
against future threats by making you more formidable in every way.
Benefit: Each of your ability scores increases by 1.
Level 11: Blindside
Guild executioner paragon path feature
A key trait taught to you by your guild is how to take advantage of the ignorance of
your enemies. While hidden, you can remain so still that, when your strike comes,
your enemies have no time to react or to defend themselves. Though truly blindsid-
ing your enemies is difficult (requiring them to move within striking distance of
you without seeing you), good luck and a good hiding place can often make your
assassinations easier than ever.
Benefit: If you are hidden from your enemies at the start of an encounter, you
gain a +4 bonus to your first attack roll during the encounter.
Level 11: Devastating Assassination
Guild executioner paragon path feature
Your guild has taught you its secret techniques for executions. These secrets may
be as simple as the angle of a blade or as complex as a long period of preparation
before the execution takes place. Regardless of the actual form it takes, this knowl-
edge increases the potency of your deadliest attack.
Benefit: When you use assassin’s strike, increase the extra damage it deals by
2d10.
Level 11: Executioner’s Action
Guild executioner paragon path feature
For you, the span of time when your killing blow streaks toward your enemy’s body
seems to slow to a crawl. That crucial instant passes in the blink of an eye for your
enemies and allies, but you perceive each fraction of it in full clarity that lets you
guide your strike to where it will do the most harm.
Benefit: When you spend an action point to make an attack and you roll a 1, 2,
or 3 on any damage die associated with that attack (including extra damage from
assassin’s strike or critical hit dice), that die instead deals 4 damage.
Assassin
Level 12: Daring Escape
Guild executioner paragon path feature
When the kill is made, you need to be prepared to bolt away at a moment’s notice.
Your guildmasters taught you a special slaying technique that uses the momentum
of your last, deadly strike to propel yourself away. Before your enemies even know
that their ally is dead, you are already speeding out of sight.
Benefit: You gain the daring escape power.
Daring Escape Guild Executioner Utility 12
You transfer the momentum of a killing blow into a rapid dash that leaves remaining enemies
far behind.
Encounter F Martial
Free Action Personal
Trigger: You reduce an enemy to 0 hit points.
Effect: You shift up to twice your speed. You gain a +5 power bonus to Athletics checks
made to climb and jump during the shift.
Level 13: Improved Death Attack
Death comes swiftly to the wounded, and even more swiftly when you are
involved. Your ability to end the life of a wounded enemy grows to the point that
even those who don’t yet feel truly endangered can fall to your attack.
Benefit: When you hit an enemy with a melee or a ranged attack that deals
damage, you can choose to reduce the enemy to 0 hit points automatically if it has
20 hit points or fewer after the damage is dealt.
Level 14: Ability Score Increase
Your continued cultivation of the dark forces within you enhances your physical
and mental resilience.
Benefit: You increase two ability scores of your choice by 1.
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Level 15: Improved Poison Use
As you gain greater experience in the wider world, you also come across rare sub-
stances that can enhance the effectiveness of your poisons. Through study and
experimentation, you learn to create dangerous toxins that draw their potency
from exotic creatures and plants.
Benefit: You learn the recipe for a 15th-level assassin poison of your choice.
When you prepare vials of assassin poison during an extended rest, one of them
can be up to 15th level.
Black Lotus Extract  This powder is derived from the legendary black
lotus flower. The effect is devastating when this substance comes in contact with
a creature for more than a few seconds. Black lotuses bloom only once every three
years, and it is during that time that the flowers can be harvested to produce this
toxic oil. Black lotuses grow only in deep swamps, along shadowed riverbanks, and
at the edges of caves where they are sheltered from direct light.
Black Lotus Extract Level 15
This thick oil is dark blue, though it becomes invisible when applied to a weapon or object.
Assassin Poison
Power (Consumable F Poison): Minor Action. You apply the poison to your melee
weapon or five pieces of your ammunition. Until the end of the encounter, when you
hit a creature with a weapon attack using the poisoned item, the creature takes 8
extra poison damage.
Power (Consumable F Poison): Minor Action. You apply the poison to a handheld object.
Within the next hour, the next creature other than you to hold or wear the object for
more than 1 minute takes 40 poison damage.
Insanity Mist  Another poison designed to affect the mind as much as the
body, insanity mist is a liquid that is only potent when made airborne and then
inhaled. A liquid is distilled from the brains of mind flayer thralls (or mind flayers
themselves, which produce a much higher quantity of poison) and combined with
several kinds of mold spores to deliver the poison straight to the brain. Insanity
mist begins eroding the consciousness of the victim almost instantly.
Assassin
Insanity Mist Level 15
This deep purple liquid swirls with milky colors that sometimes seem to resolve into
disturbing images.
Assassin Poison
Power (Consumable F Implement, Poison, Psychic): Standard Action. Effect: Make the
following attack:
Ranged 5
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. Fortitude
Hit: 3d10 + Dexterity modifier poison damage, and ongoing 10 psychic damage
(save ends).
First Failed Saving Throw: The ongoing damage increases to 15.
Miss: Half damage, and ongoing 5 psychic damage (save ends).
Special: If the DM allows it, a creature reduced to 0 hit points by this poison is not
killed, but is instead driven permanently insane.
Power (Consumable F Poison): Standard Action. You place the insanity mist in a closed
container, such as a chest or a jewelry box. Make the attack above against the first
creature to open the container within the next hour.
Lich Dust  To those uneducated in the art of poison crafting, lich dust is often
believed to be a powder made from the ground-up bones of liches. This belief is
only partially correct; in truth, lich dust is made from a combination of pulverized
bones taken from a variety of undead creatures (liches among them) mixed with
other alchemical and natural substances. Lich dust retains some of the necro-
mantic power that once animated the bones it is made from, which can drain the
energy and spirit of creatures that consume it or are injured by a weapon coated
with the poison.
Lich Dust Level 15
This white powder looks to be the residue of ground-up bones.
Assassin Poison
Power (Consumable F Poison): Minor Action. You apply the poison to your melee
weapon or one piece of your ammunition. During this encounter, the next creature you
hit with a weapon attack using the poisoned item takes 10 extra poison damage, and
it is weakened (save ends).
Power (Consumable F Poison): Minor Action. You pour the poison into a drink or onto
a plate of food. Within the next hour, the first creature to consume the food or drink is
weakened until the end of its next extended rest.
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Level 16: Vital Strike
Guild executioner paragon path feature
In your pursuit of a greater ability to execute your targets quickly and efficiently,
one of your fields of study is the anatomies of various types of creatures. You have
found about more than just the natural races—you’ve learned where to strike
demons to inflict the most damage, where the weak points of angels can be found,
and where an archon’s armor leaves tiny but dangerous gaps.
Benefit: Your at-will weapon attack powers deal half damage on a miss.
Level 16: Untraceable Step
When you use untraceable step, you use the power of shadow magic to create a veil
around yourself that hides you from the sight of others. This veil is short-lived, but
it does not waver even when you engage in strenuous activity. Many assassins use
this power as a means of both infiltration and escape, either slipping past the eyes
of guards on the way to an assassination or vanishing from sight long enough to get
free of the chaos that follows a killing.
Benefit: You gain the untraceable step power.
Untraceable Step Assassin Utility 16
The air wavers for a moment before a veil of invisibility covers you from head to toe.
Encounter F Shadow
Move Action Personal
Effect: You become invisible and move up to your speed. You remain invisible until the
end of your next turn.
Level 17: Shadow Coffin
Those who hire executioners usually want proof of a target’s death. The shadow
coffin power is an application of shadow magic that allows the executioner to
bring back more than just a simple token of the assassination; it retrieves the
entire body of the intended target. Even in situations when no proof of death is
necessary, an executioner might use shadow coffin to quickly and expertly dispose
of an inconvenient corpse. This is especially important when authorities are
investigating nearby.
Benefit: You gain the shadow coffin power.
Assassin
Shadow Coffin Assassin Utility
You trap the target of your assassination in a small object, which keeps the body out of sight
until you are ready to release it.
Encounter F Shadow
Free Action Melee 1
Trigger: You kill an adjacent creature and don’t already have a corpse trapped by this
power.
Target: The creature’s corpse
Effect: The target disappears and is trapped in a nonmagical object of your choice on
your person (such as a handheld mirror, a small gem, or a piece of jewelry). The target
remains trapped until you release it or until the object is destroyed. To release the
target into an adjacent square, you must hold the object and concentrate for 1 minute.
Level 18: Ability Score Increase
Seemingly, there is no end to how much you can hone your abilities by surrender-
ing to, and taking control of, the power of the dark.
Benefit: You increase two ability scores of your choice by 1.
Level 19: Improved Poison Use
Your mastery of the arts of making and using poison continues to become stronger.
Your repertoire of toxins is more debilitating than ever before.
Benefit: You learn the recipe for another 15th-level assassin poison of your
choice. When you prepare vials of assassin poison during an extended rest, two of
them can be 15th level.
Level 20: Poisoner’s Secrets
Guild executioner paragon path feature
When you reach the height of your power within your assassins’ guild, you become
privy to the secrets and mysteries that your guild’s poisonmasters have held for
many years. You not only learn the secret to crafting the deadly poison known as
wyvern venom, you also learn how to mix your poisons more efficiently so that you
can craft more of them in the same amount of time.
Benefit: You learn the recipe for the assassin poison wyvern venom. During an
extended rest, you can prepare a 20th-level assassin poison that does not count as
one of the poisons you can normally prepare.
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Wyvern Venom  The secret to creating this rare and potent toxin is
closely guarded by the most powerful assassins’ guilds. Versatile in its applica-
tion, it not only does injury to a creature’s body, it rots away flesh and bone, melts
sinew, and boils the blood. Even after the initial shock of the effect of the venom is
over, the pain and damage inflicted by the poison linger, making it difficult for the
body to heal. The base of the poison is the venom from an actual wyvern, though
the poison used by executioners is the result of a complex alchemical process that
increases its potency tenfold.
Wyvern Venom Level 20
This poison is far more dangerous than that delivered by the sting of a wyvern itself, as a result
of the alchemical process that produces this inky-black liquid.
Assassin Poison
Power (Consumable F Necrotic, Poison): Minor Action. You apply the poison to your
melee weapon or one piece of your ammunition. During this encounter, the next
creature you hit with a weapon attack using the poisoned item takes 25 extra necrotic
and poison damage.
Power (Consumable F Necrotic, Poison): Minor Action. You pour the poison into a drink
or onto a plate of food. Within the next hour, the first creature to consume the food or
drink takes necrotic and poison damage equal to half of its bloodied value, and it cannot
regain hit points until the end of its next extended rest.
Power (Consumable F Necrotic, Poison): Minor Action. You apply the poison to a
single handheld object. Within the next hour, the first creature other than you to hold
or wear the object for more than 1 minute takes necrotic and poison damage equal
to half of its bloodied value, and it cannot regain hit points until the end of its next
extended rest.
Assassin
Epic E xecutioner
By the time you reach the epic tier, you are much more than a simple killer for
hire: You are among the greatest assassins ever to have lived. Elemental princes
watch over their shoulders for a sign that you might be lurking in their shadows,
and the very whisper of your name sends chills through the courts of the fey.
When your executioner reaches 21st level, he or she takes on an epic destiny
of your choice. This epic destiny represents the grand finale of your adventuring
career, and like your paragon path, it grants a set of related features and powers.
Executioner epic Tier
Total Feats
XP Level Known Class Features and Powers
175,000 21 +1 Ability score increase
Epic destiny feature
210,000 22 +1 Ignore barriers
255,000 23 — Improved Death Attack
310,000 24 +1 Ability score increase
Epic destiny feature
375,000 25 — Improved Poison Use
450,000 26 +1 Epic destiny feature
550,000 27 — —
675,000 28 +1 Ability score increase
825,000 29 — Improved Poison Use
1,000,000 30 +1 Epic destiny feature
Level 21: Ability Score Increase
Your entrance into the epic tier is heralded by a rush of vitality and clarity. You are
now stronger, wiser, and even more unassailable.
Benefit: Each of your ability scores increases by 1.
Level 21: Epic Destiny Feature
As you enter the epic tier, your final destiny comes into focus. Perhaps you are
fated to save the world from some great evil, or maybe fate has dictated that you
must fight against a god. The destiny you pursue shapes you just as your actions
shape the cosmos.
Benefit: You gain a feature associated with your epic destiny.
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Level 22: Ignore Barriers
Executioners often receive assignments to assassinate powerful individuals that
cordon themselves off from the world behind walls of stone and gates of steel. This
power allows you to use shadow magic to cause walls, doors, and other objects to
temporarily fade from existence when you approach them, allowing you to pass
through barriers that would keep other creatures out.
Benefit: You gain the ignore barriers power.
Ignore Barriers Assassin Utility 22
Your physical form becomes as unstable as a shadow, allowing you to step through physical
barriers with ease.
Daily F Shadow
Minor Action Personal
Effect: You are phasing until the end of the encounter.
Level 23: Improved Death Attack
Your gift for executing the weak and dying allows you to put down creatures of greater
power quickly and without a mess. Your attacks rarely leave your enemies at death’s
door; instead, they escort your enemies through that door into death’s parlor.
Benefit: When you hit an enemy with a melee or a ranged attack that deals
damage, you can choose to reduce the target to 0 hit points automatically if it has
30 hit points or fewer after the damage is dealt.
Level 24: Ability Score Increase
Yet again, the darkness in your soul works physical and mental changes within
you.
Benefit: You increase two ability scores of your choice by 1.
Level 24: Epic Destiny Feature
Your place in the cosmic order becomes cemented as you gain still more power. At
this point, fate seems to bend and weave to ensure your survival.
Benefit: You gain a feature associated with your epic destiny.
Assassin
Level 25: Improved Poison Use
Like any other field of learning, mastery of poisons comes only after a long period
of practice and diligent studying. As you approach the apex of knowledge in the
poisoning arts, you learn how to manipulate poisons extracted from the bodies of
powerful beings such as angels, basilisks, and dragons.
Benefit: You learn the recipe for a 25th-level assassin poison of your choice.
When you prepare vials of assassin poison during an extended rest using your
Poison Use feature, one can be up to 25th level and two can be up to 15th level.
Dark Reaver Powder  Said to come from the pulverized bodies of angels
devoted to gods of death, dark reaver powder has the ability to knock a creature
unconscious for a long time. Assassins use dark reaver powder to get enemies out
of the way without killing them or to send a message not to cross the wrong person.
When applied in powder form to a weapon, the poison seeps into the blood and pro-
duces a diluted effect that renders enemies woozy for a short period of time.
Dark Reaver Powder Level 25
This black powder can render a creature comatose if consumed.
Assassin Poison
Power (Consumable F Poison): Minor Action. You apply the poison to your melee
weapon or five pieces of your ammunition. Until the end of the encounter, when you
hit a creature with a weapon attack using the poisoned item, the creature takes 10
extra poison damage, and it is dazed until the end of your next turn.
Power (Consumable F Poison): Minor Action. You pour the poison into a drink or
onto a plate of food. Within the next hour, the first creature to consume the food or
drink falls unconscious (save ends). The creature can make a saving throw against this
unconsciousness only at the end of an extended rest and does so with a –5 penalty.
Dragon Bile  Dragon bile is one of the most sought-after substances harvested
from dragons. It can be made into a deadly poison that can slay a person in a matter of
minutes. The dragon bile used by assassins is among the most potent, and is harvested
from the bodies of powerful and ancient dragons slain by adventurers. A brief touch of
dragon bile can make it impossible for a creature to move or do anything else, while
prolonged exposure is almost always fatal.
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 Assassin

Dragon Bile Level 25 Level 26: Epic Destiny Feature

Harvested from the bodies of ancient dead dragons, this Your foes’ worst attacks cannot sway you from the great goal that lies before you.
poison is one of the most lethal.
When all seems lost, you have the strength and determination to deny death and
Assassin Poison
fight on.
Power (Consumable F Poison): Minor Action. You
apply the poison to a melee weapon or one piece of Benefit: You gain a feature (typically a utility power) associated with your epic
your ammunition. During this encounter, the next destiny.
creature you hit with a weapon attack using the
poisoned item falls prone, and it is stunned until the
end of your next turn. Level 28: Ability Score Increase
Power (Consumable F Poison): Minor Action. You Your destiny is not yet fulfilled, and you need to be stronger and sharper to stand
apply the poison to a single handheld object. Within up to the challenges that await.
the next hour, the first creature other than you to
hold or wear the object for more than 1 minute dies, Benefit: You increase two ability scores of your choice by 1.
but only if the creature is your level or lower.
Level 29: Improved Poison Use
Eye of Basilisk Powder  Among the If there’s anyone in the world better at the poisoner’s art than you, it’s only because
rarest of poisons used by assassins, eye of basilisk that individual hasn’t crossed paths with you yet.
powder is exceptionally potent in minute quanti- Benefit: You learn the recipe for another 25th-level assassin poison of your
ties. The eyes of actual basilisks (harvested at great choice. When you prepare vials of assassin poison during an extended rest using
expense by adventurers) are dried out and ground your Poison Use feature, two of them can be up to 25th level and one can be up to
into a powder that, when properly prepared, can turn its victims to stone. Assassins 15th level.
put small amounts of the powder into alchemical pellets that explode when broken to
release a small cloud of the poison around the victim.
Level 30: Epic Destiny Feature
Eye of Basilisk Powder Level 25
You have achieved the absolute pinnacle of your abilities. On the verge of facing
your destiny, you gain one final edge that could spell the difference between ulti-
This unremarkable white powder harnesses the petrifying ability of the basilisk.
mate victory and utter defeat.
Assassin Poison
Power (Consumable F Implement, Poison): Standard Action. Effect: You make the fol- Benefit: You gain a feature associated with your epic destiny.
lowing attack.
Ranged 5
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. Reflex
Hit: 6d10 + Dexterity modifier poison damage.
Miss: Half damage.
Effect: The target is slowed (save ends). First Failed Saving Throw: The target is instead
immobilized (save ends). Second Failed Saving Throw: The target is instead petrified
(save ends).
Power (Consumable F Poison): Standard Action. You place the poison in a closed con-
tainer, such as a chest or a jewelry box. Make the attack above against the first crea-
ture to open the container within the next hour.

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Totem Creatures of the Far Realm:
   The Aberrant Souls
By Galen Mullins and Jim Auwaerter
Illustrations by Alex Aparin

Throughout the world, there are those who find them-

selves touched by the Far Realm. Perhaps they possess
an innate sensitivity to the Outside’s emanations, or
they might have sought a link for their own purposes.
Regardless, the subtle and horrible influence of the
Far Realm lingers, and these unfortunates must find a
way to deal with their connection to the place beyond.
Most try to reject that taint, hoping it will fade with
time. The aberrant soul instead strengthens the tie to
create a link with a Far Realm denizen. By choosing a
particular aberrant creature as their totem, aberrant
souls gain some of that creature’s power… and more
importantly, a razor’s edge of control over the corrup-
tion that threatens to overwhelm sanity.

Finding a Calling
Aberrant souls are few in number. It is no small thing
to forge the unnatural link that gives them power.
Few even believe that such a thing is possible. Each
aberrant soul discovers the way alone, learning the
rites from scratch and guesswork. But what leads
them to walk such a difficult path?
Some have always been able to sense the Far
Realm. A young druid lurches awake every night,
sweating from his nightmares of contorting masses of
flesh and bone. He may seek the bond to understand
why he is plagued each night, and to gain control over
his dreaming. A shaman initiate summons her first

TM & © 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC. All rights reserved. D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
25

spirit, and calls a mass of writhing tentacles and eye-
stalks. Perhaps she has no choice in the matter, her
primal summons inexorably twisted by the Outside.
Or perhaps she decides to embrace the strangeness as
a gift that no other shaman could replicate. For these
individuals, forming a bond with a totem creature
allows them to shape their innate connection to the
Far Realm into something they are able to influence.
But there are some whose ambitions drive them
to terrible lengths. They witness the power of the
Far Realm and desire it for themselves. A monk
believes that to defeat a threat, she must first know
the threat. She alters her mind and body, changing so
that she may truly understand these alien creatures.
A barbarian of the wolf tribe barely survives a battle
with a gibbering mouther. He decides that his totem
animal is too weak, and takes the creature that nearly
defeated him as his new exemplar. These aberrant
souls seek the power of the maddening place beyond,
though they will find it comes at great cost.
Characters descended from the foulborn bloodline
(Psionic Power) are drawn toward becoming aberrant
souls nearly as strongly as they are drawn toward
fully psionic classes.
Leaving Society Behind
As people who have experienced the ineffable touch
of the Far Realm, aberrant souls are viewed with a
certain amount of suspicion. It can be difficult to hide
the mental and physical changes an aberrant totem
creature can bestow.
Tribal societies have a variety of reactions to the
primal character that becomes an aberrant soul.
Some are treated as pariahs—the elders claiming
that such activities create a bridge between the Far
Realm and the natural world. Other tribes may be
awed by the terrible power that an aberrant soul
possesses, and name the character as the tribe’s
champion. Reactions vary, but one thing is certain;
once discovered, an aberrant soul is set apart from
the rest of the tribe.
Hardly surprising, therefore, that many aberrant
souls live as hired mercenaries or adventurers. It is
easier to hide one’s true nature among people who
have never experienced the touch of the Far Realm
and who don’t recognize its influence. Some don’t
even bother to hide their strangeness from their new
allies, taking advantage of the pragmatic attitude that
many adventurers possess.
The Morphic Web
Becoming an aberrant soul changes the way one per-
ceives the world. All aberrant souls are aware of the
danger of the Outside’s soundless whispers, and know
they cannot rely on their own senses to keep madness
at bay. They yearn for someone with whom they can be
honest about their fears of straying too far from sanity.
This need has driven some aberrant souls to seek one
another. Who could understand their condition better
than another who has been touched by the Far Realm?
Over time, these occasional contacts have coalesced
into an informal network known as the Morphic Web.
When a member of the Web meets someone who
might be a fellow aberrant soul, the pair begin a
complicated verbal dance, for only a fool would admit
the secrets of an aberrant soul to a stranger. They use
euphemism and metaphor to convey their similarity,
identifying themselves through innocent if puzzling
phrases like “I awoke one morning to see that the
stars were alive” or “Have you ever trained three-
eyed frogs to speak?” This interchange always ends
with a key phrase: “Tell me, do you know any other
The Aberrant Souls
like-minded friends?” If the stranger answers with
the names of other Web members, then the ques-
tioner has found a member of the Web. If the stranger
does not, but does reveal a Far Realm connection, the
Web member reveals the existence of the organiza-
tion and its purpose.
Each member of the Web knows five or six con-
tacts, meeting with one or two each year to discuss
the status of their mutual friends, share stories of
their recent adventures, and pass along any infor-
mation they have gathered on the Outside. Though
these conversations seem innocuous to outsiders,
they serve a hidden purpose. Each aberrant soul
analyzes the discussion to determine if the other still
holds the upper hand over madness. In cases where
one is slipping, the other will attempt to reestablish
a sense of reality. Warning someone that “tentacles
grasp strongly and can pull you under” is a key phrase
within the Web that is often enough to shock the
hearer into swift action. If this attempt fails, members
of the Web have a final duty—when an aberrant soul
falls into madness, he or she must be neutralized
before becoming a danger to the world.
This watchful patience is normally the extent of
the collaboration and organization of the Morphic
Web. However, some twenty years ago, a call went
out warning of a threat that required all members
to work together. A shaman named Kalandas had
become known as a prominent Balancer. The Balanc-
ers are a faction of the Web that believes that their
conduit to the Far Realm works both ways, allow-
ing them to influence their totem creature toward
more benign behavior, even as they themselves are
influenced by the Outside’s attitudes. Most Balancers
believe this will be the process of generations or of
centuries, but Kalandas believed that he could speed
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Background:
Orphan of the
Gibbering Massacre
You became aware that you were different from
a young age. Perhaps your parents flinched in fear
when you threw a temper tantrum. You might
have sometimes spoken a language no one else
could understand, and the alien sounds disturbed
them. Most likely, you heard the whispers that
seemed to follow you, and felt the stares of the
people who looked away just a moment too late.
Perhaps there was one person who followed
you around. When others looked away, he or she
continued to stare. When you found the courage
to approach, you learned the truth. The sins of
the parents have been visited on their children,
and you have a connection to the Far Realm that
most others could never understand… but this
person can, because he or she has that connec-
tion as well.
Associated Skills: Dungeoneering, Insight
Associated Languages: Deep Speech
Personal Quests: Find the gravesite of your
birth parents; permanently close a portal to the
Far Realm; destroy a Far Realm creature that
threatens the community that adopted you
up the process. He found many followers amongst
the tribes of his people, offering power beyond
imagining. By turning these followers into aberrant
souls, he could more rapidly alter the nature of his
totem creature. Instead, he brought the maddening
touch of the Far Realm to those who were not strong
enough to resist it. As Kalandas imbued his followers
with the power of malignant aberrants, he became
overwhelmed by the powerful urges of his totem crea-
ture. The Morphic Web learned of his blasphemous
teachings and took action. In what is now known
as the Gibbering Massacre, the entire Web banded
together to kill Kalandas and his crazed and gib-
bering followers. The orphans from this battle were
taken to nearby tribes and schools to be raised, away
from the touch of the Far Realm. Each orphan is still
watched by at least one member of the Web, to see if
as they grow, they show signs of corruption, or if they
might follow the path of the aberrant soul.
Corruption of the Far Realm
How does the connection to the aberrant totem
creature manifest itself? When an aberrant soul
uses powers with the psionic keyword, those nearby
might hear faint incomprehensible whispers in their
minds. When calling upon primal evocations, the
spirits summoned are subtly twisted, with echoes of
creatures from the Far Realm. The aberrant soul’s
form alters, subtly at first and becoming more appar-
ent over time. Even so, these changes can usually be
explained as the result of some other magic, or con-
cealed without too much difficulty.
The mental changes are far more insidious. To
touch the Far Realm is to risk madness, but also to
gain unparalleled insight. Aberrant souls experience
visions from the perspective of their totem creatures
during their dreams and trances. The feeling of
malevolent pleasure as a mind flayer consumes its
victim or as a gibbering mouther rips apart its prey
can lead the weak to madness, but the strong can gain
understanding. Stories tell of a druid who traveled a
hundred miles to cure a child of the touch of a chaos
beast. When asked how she knew the boy had been
attacked, and how to cure him, she said only that she
The Aberrant Souls
If you wish to add cosmetic changes to your
character to show the changes caused by
the aberrant connection, some options are
listed below. You can choose a trait that most
expresses the chosen totem creature, or roll
1d10 to determine what characteristic devel-
ops. For a truly volatile body, you can choose to
roll every time you gain a level, with a new trait
replacing or adding to the old one.
1 Your eyes become entirely black or are covered
in a milky white film. Neither effect impairs
your ability to see.
2 Your hair is replaced with tentacles.
3 Your eyes bulge from their sockets, and can
be extended on short stalks at will.
4 Weeping sores appear on some part of your
body.
5 The palms of your hands sprout tiny mouths,
and your fingers elongate.
6 Patterns of color move across your body as if
something were crawling under your skin.
7 You no longer have eyes—instead, you have
smooth skin where your eyes would be. You
can still see normally, and can still be blinded.
8 Your skin is cold and slimy, occasionally leav-
ing a thin film on things you touch.
9 When you bleed, your blood is black and
viscous, like crude oil.
10 Reroll twice, taking two unique traits (ignore
any other rolls of 10 or conflicting traits)
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For DMs:
Player-Character
Visions
A player who wants his character to join the
Morphic Web might be interested in having
that character experience strange and prophetic
dreams. Usually, these sorts of plot hooks are
handled by NPC seers and madmen, but the
Morphic Web hook gives DMs an opportunity
to give that information directly to one of the
characters. The nature of these visions also lets
you provide richer and more bizarre descriptions
than you could have an NPC pass along.
That said, you should take care to not overuse
these dreams. One character shouldn’t be the
source of all the plot hooks, and if a character
is having a vision every night, it lessens each
vision’s impact.
had seen it in a dream. In the Underdark, spy­masters
tell tales of a drow who stopped a major illithid
incursion. When a scout’s brain was devoured by a
mind flayer, the drow used his totemic connection to
siphon off the knowledge gained by the mind flayer,
and thus learn the scout’s findings.
It is possible to try to control these flashes of
insight, and some aberrant souls who are more expe-
rienced with ritual magic have created a ritual to aid
with this control. See the “Aberrant Totemic Link”
sidebar for more information.
Below are four paragon paths for characters who
wish to further devote themselves to an aberrant
totem and take on its traits in exchange for its power.
Many of these paths can be reflavored to work with
Aberrant Totemic Link
You cloak your mind with the eerie energies of the
Far Realm and reach out to an aberrant creature to
draw information from it.
Level: 13
Category: Divination
Time: 1 hour
Duration: 1 day or until discharged
Component Cost: 750 gp (see text)
Market Price: 3,200 gp
Key Skill: Dungeoneering
When you master this ritual, you choose a single
type of aberrant creature, such as chaos beast or
mind flayer. This choice remains fixed throughout
your adventuring career. If you are able to create
ritual scrolls, any scrolls you create also reflect this
choice. This ritual can only be mastered once.
For the ritual’s duration, you are able to deter-
mine the presence or absence of creatures of the
chosen type within 10 miles, but with no specific
direction or distance information. If there are any
within range, you can connect to the mind of a
random creature of that type and try to gain infor-
mation from it. The strain of making this connection
(and of concealing it from the aberrant creature)
causes you to lose one healing surge.
Your Dungeoneering check result determines
how many questions you can try to find the answers
to. Once you have asked all the questions allowed
by the ritual, the ritual ends.
other Far Realm totems. For example, the Phrenic
Master could be devoted to an aboleth rather than
a mind flayer. Although primal characters are the
focus for these paragon paths, they aren’t limited to
The Aberrant Souls
Your questions can be as specific or as general
as you wish, but the answers you receive back are
cryptic and rarely longer than a phrase, a short
sentence, or a single image. In particular, aberrant
creatures often have different conceptions of time,
so questions regarding future events or plans are
more likely to result in answers that are incompre-
hensible. The answers are also limited to what the
individual creature knows, and its information could
be incorrect if it has been misled by others.
Dungeoneering Number of
Check Result Questions
9 or lower One
10-19 Two
20-29 Three
30-39 Four
40 or higher Five
If a particular creature does not know the infor-
mation you seek, you can try to find another
individual who does know it. If there is another
such creature, you lose an additional healing
surge, and you may re-ask any questions you wish
answers for.
Members of the Morphic Web can master and
perform this ritual even if they cannot normally
master rituals. They also do not lose a healing
surge when making the first connection to an aber-
rant creature.
primal classes. Multiclass and hybrid characters that
combine the psionic and primal power sources will
find options here that can take their stories in inter-
esting new directons.
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Formless P redator
“They change into one form at a time. I change into many
all at once.”
Prerequisite: Wild shape power
You desired more fluidity of form and motion than
what the masters taught you, so you reached out to a
creature you knew would grant the abilities you seek.
By claiming the chaos beast as your totem creature,
you can take its form, and, in doing so, the form of
any shape that its aberrant mind could imagine.
Chaos beasts continually change form, and their
strength comes from inflicting changes upon their
unwilling foes. In taking their form, such as it is, you
grow more powerful. Your body does not move like
other creatures. You gain the upper hand by warping
your limbs and contorting your joints in unnatural ways,
leaving your enemies unable to predict your attacks.
Formless Predator
Path Features
Jagged Metamorphosis (11th level): The first
time you use wild shape each encounter, you gain a
+4 bonus to damage rolls until the start of your next
turn.
Aberrant Form (11th level): When you use wild
shape to assume beast form, you can choose to resem-
ble an aberrant creature rather than a natural beast.
Reinstating Action (11th level): When you
spend an action point to take an extra action, you
can also end one effect on you. You may also shift 1
square before or after the extra action.
Fluid Form (16th level): Choose a 1st-level at-
will attack power that you know. That power gains
the beast form keyword while you are in beast form,
The Aberrant Souls
and loses the beast form keyword while you are in
humanoid form.
Formless Predator Powers
Undulating Pseudopod Formless Predator
Attack 11
As you flow across the battlefield, a pseudopod briefly forms
on your body, reaching out to confound an enemy.
Encounter F Implement, Primal, Psionic
Standard Action Melee touch
Target: One creature
Effect: You shift up to your speed. You can make the following
attack at any point during this movement.
Attack: Wisdom vs. Reflex
Hit: 3d8 + Wisdom modifier damage, and the target is dazed
until the end of your next turn.
Amorphous Return Formless Predator
Utility 12
Nothing can force you into a specific form for long.
Encounter F Primal, Psionic
No Action Personal
Trigger: You start your turn and are affected by a polymorph
effect or an effect that is petrifying you.
Effect: You end the effect, and you gain 10 temporary hit points.
Touch of Dissolution Formless Predator
Attack 20
With a single touch, your foe’s body dissolves into a proto­
plasmic form.
Daily F Beast Form, Implement, Polymorph, Primal, Psionic
Standard Action Melee touch
Target: One creature
Attack: Wisdom vs. Fortitude
Hit: 4d10 + Wisdom modifier damage, and the target is blind-
ed and takes ongoing 15 damage (save ends both).
Each Failed Saving Throw: The ongoing damage increases by
5.
Miss: Half damage, and the target is blinded and takes ongoing
5 damage (save ends both).
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H erald of M adness
“I … it’s hard for me to focus… but it’ll be even harder
for you.”
Prerequisite: Barbarian, monk, or ranger
You are intimately familiar with the power that
comes with controlling your enemy’s emotions. Fear
is a good start, but you go even further, pushing fear
into madness. You have chosen to draw upon the
power of the aberrant creature that brings madness
by its mere presence: the gibbering mouther. Your
warcry carries the sound of a thousand voices, all
shouting different things. Those who hear you claw at
their ears, your voice infecting their thoughts and fill-
ing their hearts with terror.
With this power comes a change. Your mind… is
different, somehow. Some thoughts come only with
difficulty, but at times, you know things that your
friends and allies believe you had no way of know-
ing. You may sometimes try to share your unique
viewpoint with others, but even your most innocuous
comment brings pain.
Herald of Madness
Path Features
Befouled Mind (11th level): When an enemy
attacks your Will, it takes psychic damage equal to
your Dexterity or Strength modifier.
Infectious Madness Action (11th level): When
you spend an action point to make an attack, choose
one creature hit by that attack. That creature must
make a melee basic attack against a creature of your
choice as a free action.
Recovery through Pain (16th level): Whenever
an ally within 5 squares of you fails a saving throw,
that ally can take psychic damage equal to his or
her level to reroll the saving throw, with a +2 bonus
against charm, fear, or psychic effects. The ally must
use the second result.
Herald of Madness Powers
Disorienting Strike Herald of Madness
Attack 11
The initial blow is only the start of your enemy’s troubles, as
he becomes unsteady and confused.
Encounter F Primal, Psionic, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity or Strength vs. AC
Hit: 2[W] + Dexterity or Strength modifier damage. The target
and any enemy who starts its turn adjacent to the target
provoke opportunity attacks from you when shifting or
teleporting. This effect lasts until the end of your next turn.
Special: You may use this attack in place of a melee basic
attack when charging.
The Aberrant Souls
Maddening Redirection Herald of Madness
Utility 12
When an enemy gets near you, it can’t distinguish one target
from another.
Daily F Primal, Psionic, Stance
Minor Action Personal
Effect: You assume the maddening redirection stance. Until the
stance ends, when an adjacent enemy damages you with a
melee attack while at least one other creature is adjacent
to that enemy, you can take only half of the damage and
cause a creature adjacent to the enemy to take the other
half.
Babbling Rage Herald of Madness Attack 20
The sense of wrongness which flows out from you leaves your
foes open to attack.
Daily F Primal, Psionic, Rage, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity or Strength vs. Will
Hit: 5[W] + Dexterity or Strength modifier damage.
Miss: Half damage.
Effect: You enter the babbling rage. Until the end of the en-
counter, enemies adjacent to you grant combat advantage.
D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
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 The Aberrant Souls

O cular A dept
“I spy with my many eyes, someone about to die.”
Prerequisite: Ranger (hunter) or seeker
For those who wish to control their foes from a
distance, there is no better totem creature than the
beholder. Ocular adepts are seekers who wish to con-
trol everything they see. They possess minds bursting
with energy, looking for release.
The first and greatest expression of the link with
your totem creature is the manifestation of a spiriteye.
This weapon resembles nothing more than a ghostly
eye which floats in front of the ocular adept. Despite
its appearance, a seeker can use some of the prin-
ciples learned with a mundane ranged weapons to
fight with the spiriteye. It takes intense concentration
and manipulation of the psionic and primal magics
to create the spiriteye, but in time, the ocular adept
Ocular Adept Path Features
Spiriteye Manifestation (11th level): As a free
action, you can transform your bow or crossbow into
a spiriteye. Your spiriteye uses your weapon's profi-
ciency bonus, damage die, properties, powers, and
enhancement bonus, but no longer requires ammuni-
tion or any action to load it. This transformation lasts
until you dispel it as a minor action, or until the end
of your next extended rest.
Blasting Action (11th level): When you spend
an action point to make a ranged attack, you can
make a ranged basic attack with your spiriteye
against a different target as a free action.
Spiriteye Perfection (16th level): Your spirit­
eye f loats above you when you manifest it, and
you can mentally control its attacks. It no longer
requires any hands to wield it, and when you use it
Soaring, All-Seeing Ocular Adept Utility 12
Your head sprouts two eyestalks which gaze about as you glide
silently through the sky.
Encounter F Polymorph, Primal, Psionic
Minor Action Personal
Effect: Until the end of your next turn, you gain a fly speed of
4, and being flanked doesn't cause you to grant combat
advantage.
Rapid Eye Rays of Doom Ocular Adept
Attack 20
Bolts of energy flow from your spiriteye like the attacks of the
beholder—swift and deadly.
Daily F Primal, Psionic, Stance
Minor Action Personal
Effect: You assume the rapid eye rays of doom stance. Until
the stance ends, as a minor action once per round, you can
make a ranged basic attack with your spiriteye against an
enemy within 5 squares of you. If this attack hits, you can
shift one square as a free action.

gains mastery of the weapon and can control it with
thought alone.
Like the eye tyrant, you can make several swift
attacks at range and float across the battlefield to
a safer location. Attacks made with your spiriteye
resemble the beholder’s dreaded eye rays, and you
have the same variety of effects with them (albeit
with less control).
to make a ranged basic attack, it does not provoke
opportunity attacks.
Ocular Adept Powers
Totem Eye Beams Ocular Adept Attack 11
Ghostly eyestalks sprout from your head as eye beams strike
your enemies at random.
Encounter F Primal, Psionic, Weapon
Standard Action Ranged weapon
Requirement: You must make this attack using your spiriteye.
Target: One or two creatures
Attack: Dexterity or Wisdom vs. Reflex
Hit: 2[W] + Dexterity or Wisdom damage, and roll 1d4 to de-
termine the additional effect.
1. The target is dazed until the end of your next turn.
2. The target is immobilized until the end of your next turn.
3. The target takes 1d10 extra damage.
4. You slide the target up to 4 squares.
Effect: Until the end of your turn, you can fly up to 6 squares as
a move action.

D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
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P hrenic M aster
“Kneel before my intellect and tremble.”
Prerequisite: Call spirit companion power
Your mind is the gateway through which you
imprint your will upon the world. In your studies, you
have searched for more powerful ways of asserting
that will. By choosing the mind flayer as your totem
creature, you’ve gained some of the illithid’s natural
prowess at bending the wills of lesser beings.
This connection has taught you hidden secrets of
mental dominion, and you’ve found that they can also
be applied to the shamanic practice of summoning
spirit companions. In order to bind your new spirit
companion to your will, you had to prove your domi-
nance over it. Your spirit companion was cowed, to
the point that it is more slave than friend. Even so, you
know that if you let your guard down for a moment,
the slave will try to become the master.
Phrenic Master
Path Features
Spiteful Retaliation (11th level): Whenever an
enemy attacks your spirit companion and causes it
to disappear, that enemy is dazed until the end of its
next turn.
Enervating Action (11th level): When you
spend an action point to make an attack, any enemy
hit by the attack takes a –2 penalty to saving throws
against any effects the attack imposes. Enemies hit
by the attack grant combat advantage until the end of
your next turn.
Twin-Souled Projection (16th level): You can
choose to use your spirit companion’s space as the
origin square for any of your ranged or area powers. If
your spirit companion is not adjacent to any enemies,
using a power in this manner does not provoke
opportunity attacks.
Phrenic Master Powers
Intellect Pummel Phrenic Master Attack 11
Your attack may not be as potent as an illithid’s mind blast,
but you’re satisfied to see your foes stumble about at your
whim.
Encounter F Charm, Implement, Primal, Psionic, Psychic
Standard Action Close blast 5
Target: Each creature in the blast
Attack: Wisdom vs. Will
Hit: 2d6 + Wisdom modifier psychic damage, and the target is
dazed until the end of your next turn.
Effect: You slide each target up to 2 squares.
Special: You can use your spirit companion’s square as the
origin for this attack.
The Aberrant Souls
Minion’s Shield Phrenic Master Utility 12
As the attack speeds towards you, you decide that your spirit
companion should take the blow instead.
Encounter F Primal, Psionic, Spirit
Immediate Interrupt Personal
Trigger: You take damage from an attack while your spirit
companion is adjacent to you.
Effect: Your spirit companion takes the damage instead of you.
Total Subjugation Phrenic Master Attack 20
Your spirit companion engulfs your enemy completely, control-
ling its movement as you control its mind.
Daily F Charm, Implement, Primal, Psionic, Spirit
Standard Action Melee spirit 1
Target: One creature
Attack: Wisdom vs. Reflex
Hit: The target is dominated (save ends).
Miss: The target is dazed (save ends).
Effect: If your spirit companion is adjacent to the target at the
start of its turn, you can slide the target up to 4 squares
and slide your spirit companion up to 4 squares to a square
adjacent to the target. This effect persists only while the
target is dazed or dominated by this power.
About the Authors
Jim Auwaerter hails from a small village off the coast of
the Lugotak Sea, far to the north of the Moonsea. Galen
Mullins comes from a land of ice and snow. Together, they
make a pretty good team. They both welcome feedback on
the Wizards Community forums.
D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
32
 Magic, art, renewal, and beauty—these are the
Protector’s provinces, the gifts ancient Corellon
bestowed upon the mortal world when Creation’s
dew still lay wet across the land. He is the origina-
tor of arcane magic, having seeded its power in the
world. It is said he himself planted the first forests,
and the most ancient woods still bear his mark in the
towering trees who command the lands all around.
The greatest artistic achievements, the most bril-
liant paintings and heart-wrenching epics owe their
inspiration to him, the Divine Muse. Corellon, First
of the Seldarine, Protector, Creator of all Elvenkind,
the Coronal of Arvandor is among the greatest gods
in the Astral Sea and that which f lows from his pres-
ence is wondrous in its glory, terrible in its fury.

History, Legends,
and Myths
“You have come seeking truth about Corellon. To this I
will ask you a question. What is truth when it comes to
the gods? What is history and what is legend? Is there
a difference? Is it not said that Corellon sired the elven
races? You have heard the tale where elves rose from his
blood spilled by Gruumsh during that fateful contest
where Corellon took the monstrous god’s eye. But have you

Channel Divinity: also heard the tale in which Corellon battled the Spider
Queen and cast her into the abyssal darkness? It is said
elvenkind also rose from the blood she spilled. There is

  Corellon’s Devoted
also the tale of how the elven people were born from those
tears he shed during the times of the Triune Harmony,
with the races rising from tears of sorrow, beauty, and
mirth. What would you say if I told you all three tales
By Robert J. Schwalb were true? How can this be? Corellon is a god, and with
Illustration by Matias Tapas the gods all things are possible.”

TM & © 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC. All rights reserved. D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
33

Eladrin priests raise their voices in song as night falls
in the Feywild to welcome the Azure Star as it rises in
the firmament. A gnarled elven mystic leads the hunt-
ers in the Litany of Arrows before the hunt, building
courage and resolve in those who would prowl the
woodlands to harvest orc scalps. A drow priestess
wrenches an elf ’s heart free from a sundered priest,
offering blasphemous curses to the sire who exiled
them to the banished darkness. A frustrated poet
offers up a prayer to the Divine Muse for the inspira-
tion he needs to complete the epic on which he has
toiled for so long, while a mage in a tower’s top offers
thanks to Corellon before beginning the ritual that
will open the portal needed to cross a thousand miles
in the blink of an eye. Who is this god to whom all
these mortals turn? What legends inform the middle
world to this heavenly presence who fills the heart
with passion, who girds the spirit against ugliness,
and who reveals magic’s secrets with no expectation
of recompense?
A Gift of Magic
“Fools pray to Ioun and Vecna to master arcane magic.
Those usurpers are nothing but pretenders and corruptors;
they twist magic into obscene forms that have nothing to
do with the beauty and artfulness expressed by the first to
master its power.”
There was a time when mages did not exist, when
sorcery and its power were reserved for the gods
alone. There was a time when magic was beyond
mortal ken. Many take arcane energy for granted
since it pervades the middle world, abundant
and powerful, captured in complex formulas or
acquired through tainted blood and fell pacts
forged with alien powers. One can find arcane
Channel Divinity: Corellon’s Devoted
energies shining in the world’s bright ref lection
and skulking in its shadows. It spawns the endless
storms troubling the Elemental Chaos and sparkles
in the Astral Sea’s endless vistas. Arcane magic is
everywhere, available to anyone with the talent or
training to master it.
Corellon brought arcane magic to the world,
no one will deny, not even those priests who serve
Ioun and Vecna. The question, however, is why.
The most powerful magic-users can rival the gods
themselves, so many have wondered why Corellon
would compromise the gods’ power. There are those
who believe Corellon unwittingly brought magic to
the world. When he descended from the Astral Sea
to survey what the primordials had wrought, arcane
magic simply f lowered in his footsteps. Others sug-
gest Corellon bestowed magic to mortals as a means
of empowering them to beautify the world, to trans-
form it from its ugly, ill-formed state into a paradise.
Then again, there are tales where Corellon pitied
mortals and gave them the means to defend them-
selves against the primordials who sought their
destruction.
Any or all of these tales may be true, but the oldest
eladrin records explain they were the first to master
arcane energy and that they were the ones to codify
the formulas wizards and others now memorize to
cast their spells. Many eladrin resent traditions out-
side those learned by wizards for they circumvent
the limitations they built into magic-use to prevent
its abuse. Some have even gone so far as to say that
the eladrin secrets were stolen by other races and
perverted and twisted into obscene forms such as that
used by warlocks, sorcerers, and bards.
Elvenkind’s Sire
“Respect any god you wish, my friend, but never forget the
debt you owe to the Protector. We elves would not be with-
out his blood and tears.”
Elvenkind—those peoples known as the eladrin, elves,
and drow—owes its existence to Corellon for it was he
who gave them shape, who filled their vessels with
spirits, and gave to them his many blessings. As with
all legends involving Corellon, elvenkind’s origins
are confused thanks to competing legends upheld by
the various groups now scattered across the planes.
The most widely accepted story claims that the elves
arose from the tears Corellon wept from sorrow,
beauty, and mirth during the days before Lolth’s fall,
when he lived in perfect harmony with her and her
sister Sehanine. From sorrow’s tears rose the dark
elves, from beauty’s the high elves, and from mirth
the wood elves. All three peoples lived in perfect har-
mony, honoring their maker and the Seldarine as was
their due. Lolth’s corruption, however, poisoned the
dark elves against their kin, and a terrible war sun-
dered them forever.
While this myth is perfectly serviceable for most
elvenkind, different and much older tales paint a
different story. The oldest stories suggest that Lolth
was not, in fact, Sehanine’s sister but was a vile
demon who seduced Corellon. From their union was
born the drow. When Corellon realized what he had
created, he fought the Spider Queen and banished
her and her hate-filled brood into the darkness,
where they would languish for all time. The blood
from injuries Corellon sustained in this titanic battle
spilled unto the natural world, and where the drop-
lets fell, the elves were born.
D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
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Another tale suggests the elves and orcs were all
formed during an early conf lict between Corellon
and Gruumsh. Heretical priests claim these two gods
were twin children from a forgotten primogenitor
god, and each was the mirror image of the other.
Where Corellon was beauty, reason, excellence,
and magic, Gruumsh was chaos, darkness, ugliness,
and savagery. The two came to blows many times,
but it wasn’t until they sought to stake their claims
on Creation that the titanic struggle for dominance
exploded. This duel culminated in Gruumsh losing
an eye to Corellon’s blade (or arrow in elven myth),
and the spilled blood from Gruumsh produced orcs
while that from Corellon produced elves. If this tale
is true, then there is an unsettling bond between
these two races—one no right-thinking elf would dare
to accept.
Corellon and the Spider Queen
The world’s myths describe the many struggles
between the gods, their triumphs and failures, the
old grudges and bitter disputes that have, in many
ways, shaped the world into its present form. The
hatred between Tiamat and Bahamut is the stuff of
legends. Theologians can recount the War of Winter
and the Raven Queen’s triumph over Nerull, the god
of the dead. Yet of all the tales describing the gods’
wars, few equal the horror and consequences of that
between Corellon and Lolth.
In many tales, Lolth is held to have been Seha-
nine’s sister and the third god making up the Triune
Harmony. These three gods dwelled in the Feywild,
living among their creations and apart from the
other gods and their efforts to create the Lattice of
Heaven. As the Dawn War escalated with the pri-
mordials’ invading the Astral Sea, something twisted
Channel Divinity: Corellon’s Devoted
Lolth’s heart and turned her against her companions.
Some have suggested that Lolth had monitored the
wars and believed none could stop the elemental
powers. Other tales claim the Chained God and his
demons corrupted her. A few tales claim she hated
her sister and wanted Corellon for himself. The truth
is forever lost, but the results are very much with the
world still.
Lolth’s corruption infected her priests, who in
turn poisoned many eladrin against Corellon and
Sehanine. Those who would not join them in rising
up against the gods were slaughtered. A great war
was fought in the Feywild, and the struggle brought
ruin to its cities and darkened the lands all around.
Lolth and her servants were eventually defeated but
at a terrible price to all. Corellon flung Lolth and her
demons into the Abyss, where they would languish
for all eternity, an event Corellon grieves forever.
What remorse he felt for his part in Lolth’s fate
did not, however, extend to her followers. There
would be no mercy for the dark elves, no compassion
for their fall. Corellon hurled them out from the Fey-
wild and into the mortal world before sealing them
inside Torog’s own prison, the Underdark’s endless
corridors, where they would feel the light’s warmth
never again.
To the people who resisted Lolth’s temptation,
Corellon gave a warning. He instructed them to
guard against the banished darkness, lest Lolth’s
poison infect them as it had their kindred. He painted
the drow as being beyond redemption, doomed to
follow their Spider Queen into the Abyss with no
hope for salvation beyond their mortal lives. Corel-
lon understood clearly that Lolth and her kin would
never relent in their thirst for sun-kissed blood and
would trouble elvenkind until time’s end, so he
commanded elvenkind to always be ready to drive
back the darkness wherever it emerges.
Corellon and Sehanine then withdrew from the
Feywild; the Dawn War’s destruction had grown so
great they could no longer ignore its threat. This was
the last the Feywild saw of Corellon and Sehanine,
for the primal ban established at the Dawn War’s
conclusion bound the pair as tightly as it did the other
gods and ensured Corellon and Sehanine would not
interfere in mortal affairs again.
The Dawn War
Lolth’s betrayal could not have come at a worse time.
While Corellon, Sehanine, and the rest of the Selda-
rine led the elves and eladrin against the drow and
their demonic allies, the Astral Sea had become a
battleground. Resentful of the gods meddling with
Creation, the primordials sought to destroy what they
had built. The gods, whose interest in the natural
world was by then more than passing, stepped in to
protect what they had claimed for themselves. In
response, the primordials invaded the Astral Sea.
War raged unchecked, shattering the gods’ efforts at
building a unified heaven, reducing their dominions
to ruins, and littering the plane with the corpses of
gods, exarchs, and primordials alike.
The Dawn War’s costs are still being reckoned
even after millennia. Arvandor, a paradise that the
Triune Harmony had hoped to use as a retreat, lay
in ruins. The surviving gods squabbled over what
was to be done with the abominations they had
created to fight the elemental armies. Sehanine
persuaded Corellon to side with her, Avandra, and
Melora against the other deities and their efforts
to seal off Carceri, a horrid place that spawned the
abominations, and withdrew to their plane and its
D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
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troubles. Since then, Corellon has had little to do
with the other gods.
The Maiming of Gruumsh
Although many tales claim the contest between
Gruumsh and Corellon gave birth to the elven
races, other elven theologians believe the maiming
occurred after the Dawn War’s conclusion. Corellon
was reluctant to embrace mortals outside elvenkind.
He had long regarded humans, halflings, and others
as minor beings less refined and less worthy of his
notice. As other sources have recounted, Corellon, at
Sehanine’s prompting, turned his azure gaze to the
world’s people and found, after living among them,
that he was wrong. Like his beloved children, these
peoples also appreciated beauty and art, song and
poem. They could work the magic he had given the
world to an extent that their innovations with the art
almost equaled those of the eladrin in their shining
cities. After these realizations, Corellon welcome dev-
otees from other races and bewtowed on them gifts
and wisdom, inspiration and wonder at the many pos-
sibilities this world contains.
It was during this time that Gruumsh and Corel-
lon are said to have had their infamous battle. The
two had clashed many times, but in their efforts to
gain mortal followers, both saw a fight like no other
in their history. The two battled for seven days and
nights, with neither gaining ground against the other.
On they fought, spawning quakes in the earth and
storms in the sky until Gruumsh let down his guard.
He was distracted for but a moment, but Corellon
seized upon it and claimed his enemy’s eye. With
his wound spurting black blood that spawned hor-
rific monsters, the dark god fled in pain, agony, and
Channel Divinity: Corellon’s Devoted
a welter of curses that Corellon would know only sad- Common Worship
ness and grief.
Common folk offer prayers to Corellon as they do
The distraction that cost Gruumsh his eye is
to most gods. Most ordinary petitioners come to the
the subject of long debate. The elves, who point to
Corellon for inspiration. A painter might whisper
this conf lict as a great moment in their god’s his-
a prayer before setting a brush to canvas, while a
tory, claim that there was no real distraction but
poet might make an offering at Corellon’s shrine
only Gruumsh’s failing strength. The orcs, however,
before performing his next work. Rustics all invoke
claim that Sehanine tricked their god by drawing
his name during the rites of spring. Mages, even
his attention with her wicked wiles long enough for
those who revere Ioun above all, look to Corellon
Corellon to strike. The drow claim it was Lolth who
for guidance and wisdom in mastering their spells
won this victory for Corellon, yet the god offered
and rituals,.
her only exile and pain as her reward. Perhaps none
Now as always, Corellon finds his most ardent
are true; perhaps all of them are. The only witnesses
followers among the eladrin. They pray to the god
were the gods themselves, and they offer no explana-
for the same reasons others do, but the eladrin also
tions to mortals.
see Corellon as a warrior god. They honor him and
his devotion to excellence by mastering the weapons
Corellon he favors—the longbow and longsword—and weave
in the World arcane magic into swordplay. The artistry Corellon
inspires extends beyond the brush and the sculptor’s
Corellon’s reluctance to embrace other races has to
chisel; it can be found in the deft strike from a blade
some extent stunted his presence among the world’s
or a well-cast spell.
peoples. He is the principle deity among the eladrin
Among all elves, Corellon remains an important
and other Feywild races, but on many fronts in the
figure; none forget his part in their creation. Corellon
natural world, other gods encroach on his spheres
shares center stage with Sehanine, whom many favor
of influence. For example, although Corellon is
as a less severe goddess and whose furtive ways are
acknowledged as the father and giver of arcane
in keeping with elven culture. Some have gone so far
magic, most wizard academies are founded in Ioun’s
as to elevate Melora above Corellon, but these are the
name. Many look to Melora for guidance when it
wildest elves. To them, Melora reflects the wilderness
comes to taming the land, even though Corellon
in which they live.
embodies the wonder and beauty of the wilderness.
Artists offer prayers to Avandra and Sehanine, even
though the aesthetic is clearly under Corellong’s
purview. Despite losing ground in some corners,
Corellon’s followers are found among nearly every
race and culture across the planes.
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Corellon Backgrounds
Corellon calls many people to his service, drawing
initiates from all walks, all social classes, and all
races. Your background elements are a good place to
start for establishing your character as one of Corel-
lon’s chosen. The best place to look is in elements
connected to Corellon’s domains—arcana, skill,
and wilderness. For arcana, you might have been
a scholar, finding the god in the dusty tomes you
cherish. You might have been a hedge wizard when
you felt inspired to delve deeper into magical study.
If skill is more your thing, artisan is a great choice,
especially if you decide you excelled at what you did.
Wilderness is a bit broader and can cover a variety of
elements, from farmer to forest, guide to hunter. The
following backgrounds provide several new options
for being called to the faith.
Artist: You were a painter, a sculptor, a poet, a
writer, or some other form of artist. What was your
medium? Did you study under a master? Who was he
or she? Were you well known in your trade? Have you
come across any of your works?
Associated Skills: Diplomacy, History
Associated Quests: Retrieve an artifact of Corellon
or a great work of eladrin art stolen by the drow and
hidden in the Underdark; rediscover the fragments
of eons-old epic poems and assemble them into a
definitive retelling of the battle between Corellon and
Gruumsh; locate and rededicate a shrine of Corellon
that was destroyed during the Dawn War.
Fey Blood: Some distant ancestor was an elf,
eladrin, drow, or other fey humanoid. Though the
generations have diluted your fey heritage, you still
feel a kinship with your cousin races. Who was this
ancestor? Why was this ancestor important? How did
Channel Divinity: Corellon’s Devoted
you learn about this mysterious connection? How has Symbols and Vestments
it changed your life?
The earliest symbol associated with Corellon was
Associated Skills: Arcana, Perception
the crescent moon, an icon similar to that used by
Associated Languages: Elven
Sehanine’s priesthood today. Corellon’s priests moved
Associated Quests: Trace the sundered branches of
away from the moon image at some time after the
your family tree to reconnect with your distant fey
banished darkness, when Corellon cast out the drow.
relatives; spread reverence for Corellon to a region
It was said he placed the Azure Star in the night sky
where nonfey have forgotten or rejected his gifts;
to serve as a warning to those drow who return to the
create a lasting pact between two warring communi-
surface. He would be watching always.
ties of elves and humans, dwarves, or another race.
The crescent moon can still be found in older
Guide: You put your knowledge about the coun-
temples, holy books, and similar works, but more
tryside to good use as a guide. Where did you work?
and more the starburst gains prominence, especially
What sites did you see? Who were some of your cli-
among the more militant branches of the faith.
ents? Were they at all responsible for why you became
The starburst is often worn as clasps, pendants, or
an adventurer?
woven into cloaks, tabards, and robes. During reli-
Associated Skills: Nature, Perception
gious ceremonies, ordained priests wear gossamer
Associated Languages: Elven
robes in sky blue and embroidered with stars. Silver
Associated Quests: Find and permanently mark
circlets featuring the starburst are common acces-
unknown fey crossings; lead an expedition into the
sories. Traveling and adventuring priests show their
Astral Plane; earn the trust and cooperation of the
affiliation with sky blue cloaks and favor chainmail,
treants in an important undertaking.
longswords, and longbows in imitation of their
Witch: You were a witch, a hedge mage, or village
divine patron.
wise person. Did you have genuine magical skill or
Depictions show Corellon as an androgynous
was your knowledge invested in herbal healing? Were
elven or eladrin being, sometimes male, other times
you welcome in your community or did they treat you
female (it’s believed Corellon can assume either
as an outsider?
gender, or even both at the same time). Most por-
Associated Skills: Arcana, Heal, Nature
traits and sculptures show Corellon as male and
Associated Quests: Save a village from mystical
dressed in battle regalia, fine mail, a sky blue cloak,
marauders; identify and befriend angry primal spir-
with longsword and longbow. His golden hair hangs
its; destroy a temple of Lolth.
in curls from his head and frame perfect, beautiful
features. Corellon may be shown as wandering the
earth, fighting primordials, Gruumsh, or Lolth, or
alongside other deities of particular import to the
fey peoples. Sehanine, his bride, is often at his side.
Other works may depict the Seldarine, those lesser
powers dwelling with them in Arvandor. No works
D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
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showing Corellon, Sehanine, and Lolth together are
known to exist, though the most ancient temples
show damage in places where Lolth might have once
been represented.
Omens and Signs
Rare is the mortal who communes directly with the
gods. Most divine servants rely on missives dispatched
from angels, exarchs, or through auguries performed
to ascertain the god’s will. Gods do not often speak
with their divine servants, but they can and do make
their will known through omens and signs.
Stars and celestial phenomena are important
signs, each interpreted as a direct communication
from the god. The blue star’s appearance always
signifies Corellon’s interest. A falling star suggests
Corellon offers support. A falling star moving across
or from the crescent moon, however, clearly indicates
Corellon’s displeasure.
Gemstones, the diamond, star sapphire, and star
ruby, are also important omens. Their discovery sig-
nals good fortune, while their loss implies imminent
defeat. Such stones are also used in crystallomancy
rituals—scrying rituals that use gemstones as foci
rather than still pools, mirrors, and the like.
When Corellon is displeased, his signs are obvi-
ous. A lone tree with leaves turned out of season
or the sound of three twigs snapping in short suc-
cession are always bad signs. On the other hand,
Corellon can reveal his favor in personal ways.
Epiphanies and bouts of sudden, powerful inspi-
ration are common blessings. A burst of physical
strength could warn a devotee to a hidden danger.
Should the god take a direct hand, he might mani-
fest as a glowing blue mist and settle over and infuse
a location, object, or individual.
Channel Divinity: Corellon’s Devoted
Major Precepts
Corellon remains important to the elven peoples
because he embodies their highest cultural ideals.
Corellon is the ageless wonder, ever striving for
physical and spiritual perfection. He is all the elves
once were and in his light, the elves see the way
forward to what they can become. Mortals look to
Corellon for inspiration in artistic endeavors, inno-
vations in magic, and excellence in all that they do.
Corellon asks little from his followers, focusing on
three major concerns.
Beauty
Beauty lies all around, in mist-clouded mountain
valleys, the stars sparkling in the firmament, the
Life as an Elven Priest
Anyone can serve Corellon, but elves (elves and
eladrin) priests have special expectations placed
upon them. These devout cleave to their god’s
commandments but place a greater emphasis on
protecting their people. As an elven priest, you
are also expected to:
F Safeguard the elves and their holdings.
Elvenkind is your paramount concern.
F Seek out and recover lost elven relics, for
other races cannot be trusted with their
safety.
F Be vigilant against the Spider Queen. Her
lies and treachery promote ugliness and
corruption.
F Wage war eternal against the banished
darkness. The drow are your greatest foes.
F Suffer not the orc to live.
towering trees and their swaying branches. Corellon
fosters loveliness in the world and expects his fol-
lowers to cultivate beauty in all that they do. Many
uninitiated believe that Corellon is chief ly concerned
with outward appearance, but the aesthetic he cham-
pions can manifest in an artful dance, a stirring
sonnet, a warrior’s grace, or an honesty of purpose.
Excellence is beauty as much as are the arrange-
ments of a mortal’s features or the shapeliness of his
or her body.
Although Corellon opposes the drow and orcs,
who are both traditionally evil peoples, the opposition
stems not from immorality but from their encompass-
ing ugliness. There is no beauty in drow behavior.
Blood sacrifice and consorting with demons stains
their souls until they are hideous to behold. Orcs,
who are violent, unsubtle, and crude, are the antith-
esis of Corellon’s virtues.
One can imagine, however, Corellite priests not
only tolerating evil in their midst but even going
so far as to celebrate it, provided it was done in an
artful or attractive manner. Likewise, even priests
are sometimes blinded by their own vanity and fail
to see the inner beauty possessed by outwardly ugly
creatures—this has always contributed to the long-
standing animosity between elves and dwarves, who
seem thick, ungainly, and uncouth to most elves.
Preservation
The elves were among the first humanoid races,
and thus their works and civilizations are some of
the most ancient in the world. Eladrin cities in the
Feywild have stood since before mankind emerged
from caves, as alluring and breathtaking then as
they are today. Given their great age, many works
have been lost, vanished into greedy hands or in
D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
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no-long-inhabited ruins. As there are few records
about who fashioned what, it falls to Corellon’s priests
to venture into the world and recover magical relics,
rituals, and other wondrous items for study and safe-
keeping. The priests justify what some see as theft
as simply reclaiming that which is rightfully theirs.
Corellon bestowed magic onto mortals, and since
those mortals are no longer around to use these gifts,
it is best for such treasures to return from whence
they came.
Although charged by their god to reclaim magic in
all its forms, Corellite priests recognize that magical
treasures have their place and purpose; if they can be
used to advance a higher ideal, there is no conflict in
allowing another to use that item. The elf will likely
outlive the companion anyway, and recovering the
item after the bearer moves on is better than fighting
over it. Corellite attitudes toward magical treasures
are another contentious point between elves and
dwarves. The dwarves could care less what the elven
priests claim: dwarven work is dwarven work, and
elves who value their lives will keep their mittens off
dwarven relics.
Vigilance
Corellon still grieves for Lolth and for the sundering
that divided his children. He understands the if one
could be turned from his teachings, all are vulnerable
to corruption. Corellon commands his servants to
remain vigilant against the banished darkness. One
day the drow will return from the Underdark, and
when they do, the resultant war will usher in a new
era of grief and hardship. Corellon warns his follow-
ers to commit their minds and bodies to beauty not
out of vanity but as an effort to stave off the poison in
Lolth’s whispers.
Channel Divinity: Corellon’s Devoted
The drow threat is severe enough that certain
factions in Corellon’s faith assume a militant cast
bordering on crusading orders. The holy warriors, The Misty Isle
avengers and paladins for the most part, devote their Corellon’s victory over Gruumsh did nothing to
lives to fighting Lolth and her servants. Their forays quash his hatred and, in fact, intensified it. Not
into the Underdark always carry extreme risk. Those long after Gruumsh retreated, he bargained
with a kobold fiend named Kurtulmak, who
who raid and besiege the enclaves and outposts on
had long served Tiamat as a demigod. That
the drow kingdoms’ borders often return maimed
vile wretch revealed to Gruumsh how best to
and scarred, when they return at all, and disfig- strike at Corellon and showed him the way
urement is a heavy burden to bear for Corellon’s to the Misty Isle, a place sacred to the Corel-
adherents. These crusaders also slay spiders and lite faith. It was there that Corellon’s tears (or
demons and battle the aberrant horrors prowling blood) first fell to the world, and it was consid-
the depths. ered the birthplace of the elven race. Together,
Gruumsh and Kurtulmak stole the island and
Holy Sites hid it in a place none would ever find, a place
so secure not even Corellon’s keen elven gaze
In the larger cities, Corellon’s holy sites can be could locate it.
found in most community temples where his icon This petty act only inflamed the elves’ hatred
or altar stands nearest to Erathis and Ioun. This for orcs. Not long after, vengeful elves founded
arrangement may seem odd, since Corellon has an order dedicated to recovering the Misty Isle.
few connections to these other gods. The fact is that Centuries spent in fruitless searching has not
dampened their hope of recovering this holy site.
many people see Corellon as a progressive god with
Joining the seekers is an immense honor that is
an interest in civilization, culture, and prosperity.
extended to only the bravest and most devoted
Frontier communities have a different understand- of Corellon’s faithful.
ing about Corellon, and include him with Avandra,
Melora, and, of course, Sehanine. Rustics under-
stand Corellon represents the beauty and wonder of
In the middle world, priests honor Corellon in
the natural world and also as the bringer of Spring
the many wilderness shrines raised in his name.
and slayer of Winter.
These places are almost always found in areas of
Rare is the temple dedicated exclusively to Corel-
natural beauty, centered on a rock formation accen-
lon. Even in the Feywild, where he holds greater
tuated with f lowering plants, trees, and vines. These
influence, he tends to share the place of honor with
sites always offer an excellent view of the night sky
other members of the Seldarine: Sehanine, Fenmaril
and thus include stacks, shallow caves, escarpments,
Mestarine, Shevarash of the Black Bow, Erevan
and waterfalls.
Ilesere, and Hanali Celanil, among others. In the
eladrin cities, his temples are grand alabaster cathe-
drals with minarets reaching toward the stars.
D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
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 Channel Divinity: Corellon’s Devoted

Azure Guard Azure Guard Powers

“Corellon warns us that the Banished Darkness will one
day return. When this day comes, the enemy will find us
ready, and we will throw them back into the abyss from
which they came.”
Prerequisite: Eladrin or elf, must worship
Corellon
Lolth’s return and a resumption of the disastrous war
that nearly shattered the elven peoples cast a terrible
shadow across Corellon’s priesthood. Anticipating
this event, the elders formed the Azure Guard who
would one day serve as the principle leaders in repel-
ling Lolth’s demonic forces. The warriors combine
prayers to Corellon with secret arcane spells to
achieve the edge they need to overcome their ene-
mies. Azure Guard members do not advertise their
special status lest they invite assassins to strike at
them. One cannot join the Azure Guard without invi-
tation, and even those called to serve in its esteemed
ranks may find themselves unequal to the demands
the training makes.
Banished Darkness Azure Guard Attack 11
The lightest touch hurls your enemy from you to be blinded
and bound by Corellon’s wrath.
Encounter F Arcane, Divine, Teleportation
Standard Action Melee 1
Target: One creature
Attack: Your highest ability + 6 vs. Reflex
Level 21: Your highest ability + 9 vs. Reflex
Hit: You teleport the target up to 5 squares. The target is blind-
ed and immobilized until the end of your next turn.
Special: If the target is a demon, drow, or spider, the target
also gains vulnerability to all damage equal to your highest
ability modifier until the end of your next turn.
Fury of Arvandor Azure Guard Utility 12
You suffer not the hideous to live. One successful strike sets up
your next attack to speed this enemy to the grave.
Encounter F Arcane, Divine, Teleportation
Free Action Personal
Trigger: You hit an enemy with an attack.
Effect: You teleport to an unoccupied square adjacent to the
triggering enemy. The enemy then grants combat advan-
tage to you until the end of your next turn.

Azure Guard Path Features

Enemy of the Darkness (11th level): You gain a
+2 bonus to initiative checks, Perception checks, and
saving throws against poison.
Excellence in Action (1th level): Whenever
you spend an action point to make an attack, you can
reroll one attack roll of that attack that misses. You
must use the second result.
Shielded Teleport (16th level): Whenever you
teleport, you gain a +2 bonus to AC and Reflex until
the start of your next turn.

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 Channel Divinity: Corellon’s Devoted

Corellon’s Azure Guard Attack 20

 Azure Blessing
A blue luminescence surrounds and infuses you, revealing Character Options
that you have won Corellon’s favor. You can now call down the Characters who serve Corellon have several
stars to smite your foes. options available to them to reinforce their devo-
Daily F Arcane, Aura, Divine, Radiant tion to the First of the Seldarine.
Minor Action Personal Paragon Paths: champion of Corellon
Effect: You activate an aura 5 that lasts until the end of the (Divine Power), curseborn (Dragon #367), Selda-
encounter or until you dismiss it as a free action. Squares in
rine dedicate (Divine Power), spiral tactician
the aura are brightly lit, and any enemy that ends its turn
in the aura takes 10 radiant damage. Demons, drow, and
(Martial Power), wizard of the Spiral Tower
spiders in the aura grant combat advantage. While the aura (Player’s Handbook)
is active, you can use the secondary power at will. Epic Destinies: chosen of Corellon (Divine
Secondary Power (Arcane, Divine, Radiant, Teleportation) Power)
Standard Action Close burst 5 Feats: Arcana Ward (Divine Power), Bless-
Target: One enemy in the burst ing of Corellon (Divine Power), Corellon’s Grace
Effect: 10 radiant damage, and you knock the target prone.
(Player’s Handbook), Corellon’s Wrath Style
You then teleport to an unoccupied square adjacent to
the target.
(Dragon #373), Divine Excellence (Divine Power),
Godsworn Sidestep (Dragon #384), Grasp of the
About the Author Wild (Divine Power), Power of Arcana (Divine
Robert J. Schwalb has decided to use a different bio entry Power), Power of Skill (Divine Power), Power of
in an act of solidarity with the dwarves who object to such the Wilderness (Divine Power)
fawning treatment of what many of them regard as a delicate Magic Items: bronze griffon (Dragon #384),
flower with a penchant for dooming entire peoples who star of Corellon (Adventurer’s Vault)
displease him (Or is it her? One can never quite tell from the
depictions). This said, Robert is entirely confident Corellon
will visit no retribution, because doing so would mean he
would not be able to continue contributing to your favorite
game books and DDI articles. When not peering out to watch
you from your computer screen, Robert can be found in Ten-
nessee, scratching his head and trying to remember where he
put his lunch.

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 Magic of Old
Bazaar of the Bizarre:
  Legendary Eladrin Items
By Matt Sernett
Illustration by Slawomir Maniak

Whispers of enchantment drift amid the winkling

lights that float through the Feywild’s ever-summer
evenings. Words like birdsong lilt through the forest
to perch upon the eager ears of yet another audi-
ence to stories as old as the trees under which they
are told. Magic infuses eladrin, and from a people so
touched by its power come many legends of objects
similarly imbued. These tales are told and retold, and
with each telling the luster of life returns to people,
places, and things long lost to the world.
As years pass and transform into misty history,
and history in turn slips into the fog of myth, the
facts about such wondrous items become less clear.
Yet with a race who can see so much of history pass
them by and among whom memories can linger and
be relived in trance, the truth might be more present
than many think. Who knows when a thing thought
to exist only in the mind of bards might leap into the
lives of those around it as readily as any story might
fire their imaginations?
R ing of Winter
Although many of the great eladrin relics of power
remain unknown among other peoples, the powers
of the mighty ring of winter make it a legendary
treasure for many races. Different stories abound
about the magical abilities granted to the wearer
A Magic Item’s Story
The story elements presented in this article are
meant to give the items some interesting con-
text that you might use to inspire stories and
adventures in your game. Feel free to change
them if those stories don’t fit a particular
campaign or character. You could decide that
several rings of winter exist and only one dragon
orb was ever made. You can recast the winged
shield as a bat-winged item made by drow. It’s
up to you.

TM & © 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC. All rights reserved. D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
42

of the ring, but about two points all the tales agree:
the ring has the power to usher in a time of ice, and
the one who wears it will never age nor die from the
passage of years.
This promise of immortality has brought lovers
to blows and set nations to war. Eternal life—eternal
youth should one don the ring when young—tempts
even the most virtuous to madness when it seems
as simple as wearing a bit of jewelry. Yet the eladrin
understand the legends of the ring of winter better
than most. They know that nothing is simple or easy
when it comes to items of high magic.
According to the eladrin, the legend of the ring
of winter wraps itself about the story of the Prince
of Frost. Once a fine eladrin lord of the Summer
Court, the eladrin then known as the Sun Prince
fell in love with one of the Daughters of Delight,
beautiful eladrin maids of another kingdom. Alas,
her devotion to him faded with the season, and she
came to love a mortal. The spurned Prince swore
to marry her, keeping her captive if he must. She
rejected his proposal of marriage and, frightened
of the Sun Prince’s power, the eladrin woman
appealed to the Raven Queen. She prayed to the
goddess who controls the destination of souls to
have her spirit and that of her lover thrown for-
ward in time to be reborn in the future. That wish
was granted, and so the Prince’s heart grew bitter
and cold.
Many are familiar with this tale of tragic romance,
yet few but eladrin know that the ring of betrothal
cast away by the eladrin maid became the ring of
winter. Its promise of an eternal summer in the
warmth of the Sun Prince’s love changed as the
Prince’s heart changed. Seeing it thus transformed,
the Prince of Frost despised its icy beauty, and so the
ring of winter was hurled into the world where it might
spread among mortals some of the misery the Prince
of Frost feels.
Upon donning the ring of winter, the wearer feels
an intense chill that settles into the bones but then
fades, replaced by a sense of warmth and energy.
This energy is the power of the ring to prevent
aging. So long as the ring’s owner wears it, time
cannot touch him or her. The cares of life no longer
wrinkle the brow. Worry never whitens the hair.
Life slides around the wearer like a gentle breeze
until the ring is removed, whereupon the normal
Rules vs. Story
When you come across an item that seems to
have magical abilities that aren’t described in
the rules for the item, the item behaves as its
rules describe. The magic item isn’t required
to have the specific effects described by the
italicized descriptive text or the story provided
for it. For example, the legendary immortality
granted by the ring of winter might be just a
legend, or it might be a real effect from which a
character can benefit. Whichever it is, it doesn’t
directly affect play, and the DM gets to decide
how or if it works. In your game, the winter
brought on by wearing the ring might be a subtle
effect that the PCs won’t notice until months
or years have passed. Alternatively, the ice age
provoked by wearing the ring might arrive in a
blizzard after a character wears the ring for just
a few days.
Magic of Old
Ring of Winter Level 14+ Rare
This glittering ring of unmelting ice shields you from cold and
freezes foes around you.
Lvl 14 21,000 gp Lvl 29 2,625,000 gp
Lvl 19 105,000 gp
Lvl 24 525,000 gp
Item Slot: Ring
Property: Gain resist 10 cold.
Level 19: Resist 15 cold
Level 24: Resist 20 cold
Level 29: Resist 25 cold
Power (Encounter): Immediate Interrupt. Trigger: You take cold
damage that exceeds your resistance. Effect: You gain im-
munity to cold until the end of your next turn.
Power (Encounter F Cold): Minor Action. Until the end of your
next turn, enemies that end their turns adjacent to you
take 5 cold damage.
Level 19: Enemies that end their turns adjacent to you take
10 cold damage.
Level 24: Enemies that end their turns adjacent to you take
15 cold damage.
Level 29: Enemies that end their turns adjacent to you take
20 cold damage.
effects of life continue. Thus, a young wearer could
maintain the vigor of youth, or an aged leader could
retain a grip on power and gain the wisdom of cen-
turies on the throne.
Yet for many, the promise of immortality proves
hollow, for the ring of winter bears a peculiar curse.
While worn, the weather for miles around the wearer
gradually turns cold. At first, the morning frost lin-
gers until midday. Then sleet mixes with rain. Even
in high summer, the lands in which the wearer lives
experience freak snowstorms. Winters grow longer.
Worn too often or too long, the ring turns the wearer
into a harbinger of a new age of cold and ice. For
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some who seek the ring of winter, the price of a few
seasons of wasted crops is worth the reward of extra
years. For others, it would be enough to forever run
before the storms, and if winter comes to grip the
lands in their wake, so be it.
A barbarian warlord is the last known bearer of
the ring. During one unnaturally long winter over a
century ago, he conquered several human cities and
a dwarven kingdom. Legends say he made a pact
with the Prince of Frost to gain this good fortune.
But the Raven Queen, long a rival of the Prince of
Frost, cursed the Winter King so that everything
he touched turned to ice. When the Winter King
demanded the Prince of Frost remove the curse, he
was struck down for his hubris: He and all in his
kingdom were frozen solid. If such fireside stories
hold some truth, the ring of winter might still lie in
the chill grip of the Winter King.
Magic of Old
Orb of Dragonkind
The fabled orbs of dragonkind dance in the dreams of
dragon slayers and wyrm riders alike. Known to have
been used by the eladrin of old in an ancient war with
dragons, each orb can grant its wielder the power
to control a dragon. Their history of doing so makes
them sought after both by people who seek dominion
over dragonkind and the dragons themselves.
When the world was yet young and connections
between it and the Feywild first flourished, the
dragons of the world gazed through the veil of magic
cloaking the glittering eladrin kingdoms and saw
places ripe for plunder and weak to conquest. As
creatures of might and intelligence more akin to the
gods than mere mortals, many dragons took it upon
themselves to rule the lesser beings that scrabbled
for cover at the mere shadow of their wings upon the
ground, and the eladrin kingdoms of the Feywild
were no exception.
As more and more dragons carved their cuts out
of the world and its enchanted mirror, resentment
grew. Yet how could one depose a tyrant with scales
like shields and claws like spears? What could one
do but cower in the face of sword-teeth and death-
breath? Courage to fight the dragons came from
many quarters, but no one wielded a weapon equal
to the task.
The greatest eladrin wizards went into hiding
across the cosmos in order to develop a magic that
could turn the tide against the mighty wyrms. In
flying towers shrouded by clouds and magic shadows,
in iron redoubts surrounded by the searing magma
of an elemental roil, in ships of gold sailing the Silver
Sea, the wizards worked their magic. Some of their
experiments resulted in items useful against the
D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
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dragons, others discovered new magic unrelated to
their quest, and many more were found and slain
by the dragons or their minions. Only one eladrin
wizard, said to have been inspired by Corellon him-
self, managed to manifest the magic that would be
the key to the dragon’s undoing.
This original orb of dragonkind was just the first
among many. Armed with many orbs, the eladrin
wizards were able to turn the tide by turning the
dragons upon each other. In time, some dragons
even came to see the justness of the eladrins’
actions and f led rather than fall amid the bones of
their fellows.
The threat of the orbs brought relative peace
between dragons and their lessers for many years.
In time however, the riches of the dragons tempted
treasure hunters, the promise of a dragon ally awak-
ened the avarice of warlords, and the dragons sought
to take the orbs for themselves. Many of the orbs of
dragonkind were lost in struggles over their control,
many more were destroyed lest they draw danger
to their owners, and still others were hidden. Today
the secret of their creation is a mystery, and no one
knows how many orbs of dragonkind are scattered over
the planes.
The oldest stories claim that in addition to those
orbs most often wielded by the eladrin wizards there
were in fact several special orbs of dragonkind, each
one of a swirling hue colored in accordance with
the type of dragon against which it was most effec-
tive. If true, such items would be greatly prized by
dragons as a weapon against their own kind. If one
could gather all such orbs together, who knows what
mighty enchantments might be wrought by tapping
their power?
Orb of Dragonkind Level 12+ Uncommon
This smooth crystal orb of swirling colors can grant you the
power to command dragons.
Lvl 12 +3 13,000 gp Lvl 27 +6 1,625,000 gp
Lvl 17 +4 65,000 gp
Lvl 22 +5 325,000 gp
Implement (Orb)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d6 damage per plus, or +1d10 damage per plus
against dragons.
Power (Daily F Charm, Implement): Standard Action. Attack:
Ranged 20 (one dragon); Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma
+ 4 vs. Will; on a hit, the target is dominated until the end
of its next turn. On a miss, you are dazed until the end of
your next turn.
Red Orb of Dragonkind Level 14+ Rare
This crystalline sphere swirls with color as if filled with roiling
magma. It has the power to control red dragons.
Lvl 14 +3 21,000 gp Lvl 29 +6 2,625,000 gp
Lvl 19 +4 105,000 gp
Lvl 24 +5 525,000 gp
Implement (Orb)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d6 damage per plus, or +1d10 damage per plus
against red dragons.
Power (Daily): Minor Action. Your next attack with this imple-
ment against a dragon, if made before the end of your turn,
gains a +5 power bonus to the attack roll and automatically
ignores any resistance the dragon has.
Power (Daily F Fire): Minor Action. The next attack you make
deals fire damage in addition to its normal damage types.
Power (At-Will F Charm, Implement): Standard Action. At-
tack: Ranged 20 (one red dragon); Intelligence, Wisdom
or Charisma + 4 vs. Will; on a hit, the target is dominated
until the end of its next turn. On a miss, you are dazed until
the end of your next turn.
Magic of Old
Green Orb of Dragonkind Level 14+ Rare
This heavy globe of green glass contains a swirling cloud of
gas. It has the power to control green dragons.
Lvl 14 +3 21,000 gp Lvl 29 +6 2,625,000 gp
Lvl 19 +4 105,000 gp
Lvl 24 +5 525,000 gp
Implement (Orb)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d6 damage per plus, or +1d10 damage per plus
against green dragons.
Property: Gain resist 10 poison.
Level 19: Resist 15 poison
Level 24: Resist 20 poison
Level 29: Resist 25 poison
Power (Daily): Minor Action. Your next attack with this imple-
ment against a dragon, if made before the end of your turn,
gains a +5 power bonus to the attack roll and automatically
ignores any resistance the dragon has.
Power (At-Will F Charm, Implement): Standard Action. At-
tack: Ranged 20 (one green dragon); Intelligence, Wisdom
or Charisma + 4 vs. Will; on a hit, the target is dominated
until the end of its next turn. On a miss, you are dazed until
the end of your next turn.
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White Orb of Dragonkind Level 14+ Rare
This icy orb has the appearance of a pearl the size of a goblin’s
head. It has the power to control white dragons.
Lvl 14 +3 21,000 gp Lvl 29 +6 2,625,000 gp
Lvl 19 +4 105,000 gp
Lvl 24 +5 525,000 gp
Implement (Orb)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d6 damage per plus, or +1d10 damage per plus
against white dragons.
Property: If while wielding this implement you are affected
by an effect that would immobilize, slow, slide, push, or
pull you, you may immediately make a saving throw. On
a success, you are not affected by the immobilization,
slowing, slide, push, or pull.
Power (Daily): Minor Action. Your next attack with this imple-
ment against a dragon, if made before the end of your turn,
gains a +5 power bonus to the attack roll and automatically
ignores any resistance the dragon has.
Power (At-Will F Charm, Implement): Standard Action. At-
tack: Ranged 20 (one white dragon); Intelligence, Wisdom
or Charisma + 4 vs. Will; on a hit, the target is dominated
until the end of its next turn. On a miss, you are dazed until
the end of your next turn.
Silver Orb of Dragonkind Level 14+ Rare
This sphere of polished silver pulses with warmth and motion
like a beating heart. It has the power to control silver dragons.
Lvl 14 +3 21,000 gp Lvl 29 +6 2,625,000 gp
Lvl 19 +4 105,000 gp
Lvl 24 +5 525,000 gp
Implement (Orb)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d6 damage per plus, or +1d10 damage per plus
against silver dragons.
Property: While wielding this implement, you lose all
vulnerabilities to damage, and cannot gain vulnerability to
any damage type.
Power (Daily): Minor Action. Your next attack with this imple-
ment against a dragon, if made before the end of your turn,
gains a +5 power bonus to the attack roll and automatically
ignores any resistance the dragon has.
Power (At-Will F Charm, Implement): Standard Action. At-
tack: Ranged 20 (one silver dragon); Intelligence, Wisdom
or Charisma + 4 vs. Will; on a hit, the target is dominated
until the end of its next turn. On a miss, you are dazed until
the end of your next turn.
Magic of Old
Veil of Night
It is said that Sehanine blesses paramours and sends
them shadows in which to hide their love. While
many feel they have gained such a boon from the god-
dess, few suspect how real such blessings can be.
Once there were two lovers as star-crossed as
any in the annals of eladrin romance. A young girl
named Aethea married an eladrin wizard in a bond
that made their families allies. At first Aethea found
the wizard fascinating, and the first blush of their
romance was filled with enchantment. Yet in time,
the wizard retreated into his studies. Aethea, always
energetic and desirous of excitement, threw herself
into study of woodcraft and combat so that she might
aid her two families in their ongoing war with the
elves that first prompted the alliance between her
house and that of her husband.
Aethea fought many battles alongside her husband,
but the wizard always felt she put herself too much
in harms’ way, including the harm done by his own
spells. Aethea took to fighting in battles distant from
her spouse, and it was in one such battle that she
captured a handsome elf warrior whose spirit seemed
much akin to her own. The love that grew between
them broke down the barriers of enmity, reason, race,
and even fidelity. Yet their passion for one another
surely would bring doom upon them both and per-
haps set the eladrin houses at war with one another.
Sehanine, it is said, took pity upon the lovers.
In Aethea she saw something of herself, and in the
wizard Sehanine felt echoes of Corellon. The drama
between the three people reminded Sehanine of
events from the Dawn Age. Slipping a whorl of night
sky free from the heavens, she wrapped it about
Aethea’s head and shoulders, creating the veil of night.
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With this fabulous gift, Aethea and her lover could
keep the flame of their love hidden from the enemies
who would quash it.
More romantic versions of the story insist that
the wizard crafted the veil for his wife and led her
to believe it came from Sehanine, a sacrifice of love
far stronger than she would ever know from the elf.
Regardless of the veil’s source, the story’s tragic end
is the same. The elf reveals the power of the veil to
friends he trusts. The friends betray him by telling
the leaders of the eladrin houses. Aethea and the elf
are discovered together by parties from both houses,
and in the ensuing battle, the treacherous elves
escape with veil in hand. With the veil of night to aid
them and the houses at war with one another, the
eladrin houses fell.
Among eladrin today, the romance is used as a
cautionary tale. Oddly to some, it’s moral is not about
loyalty to a spouse or the perfidy of elves. Instead
it warns eladrin not to cleave too tightly to any love
and to beware any gift that grants you what you most
desire. It’s better to care less and see clearly than
allow the veil of obsession to cloud one’s vision.
Veil of Night Level 18 Rare
This diaphanous cloth seems made of shadows and twinkling
stars. With it you can vanish from sight.
Item Slot: Head 85,000 gp
Property: Gain a +4 item bonus to Stealth checks.
Power (Daily F Illusion): Move Action. You and an adjacent
ally become invisible until either of you leaves the squares
you occupy or until the end of the encounter.
Power (Daily F Illusion): Immediate Interrupt. Trigger: An en-
emy attacks you or an ally adjacent to you. Effect: The target
of the triggering attack becomes invisible until the end of
your next turn.
Winged Shield
The story of Mindartis and his winged shield is so
famed among eladrin that many have carried his name
throughout the generations. Eladrin parents name girls
Mindartae in his honor, and even elves—long separated
from the source of the legend—have among them the
traditional names of Mindar and Minda.
Mindartis stands among the greatest heroes
of eladrin legend: slayer of Death Fang, draconic
terror of Blacktorn Forest; savior of Astaraython, the
City Lost in Time; claimant to the Silver Throne of
Sendaria who forsook the crown for love; wielder
of Epscillian, the sword that sings when wielded by
honorable hands; conqueror of Hag-Ungotha, the
vile kingdom of fomorians now nothing but a ghost-
haunted ruin. Yet Mindartis is as famed for how he
won his glories as for the deeds themselves.
In one of his first quests, Mindartis fought and
slew Thessalia, the snake-haired goddess of the Black-
Tongue goblins. During the battle with this queen of
medusas, Mindartis found himself transforming into
stone. To prevent his death, he reluctantly called upon
the favor of the Nymph Queen Vanthia, whom he had
spurned. Her miraculous appearance at his call saved
his life, but the kiss of the fickle fey only stopped his
transformation rather than restore him. From that
day forward, Mindartis had an arm of stone.
The disfigurement and his reduced ability to fight
led Mindartis down a dark path of bloodshed and
conquest during which Epscillian was silent in his
hand, but the love of Jehelenna restored his goodness
and honor. This eladrin maid crafted for him a winged
shield of silver that would flit about him as he fought,
defending him as if wielded by Jehelenna herself.
Magic of Old
At some point in his many adventures, Mindartis
lost his winged shield but regained the use of his arm.
Since these events are points of high drama, their
timing depends upon the teller of the tale. Regard-
less of the true fate of this wondrous item, a shield
with wings stands as a symbol both of devotion and of
redemption among eladrin. It is often worn by those
seeking to redress the wrongs they have done, and a
vow said to be made “beneath the wings of the shield”
is meant to be an unbreakable bond.
Winged Shield Level 15 Rare
This narrow silver shield has folded mithral wings extending
from each side. When released, it floats beside you and offers
protection as if you wielded it yourself.
Item Slot: Arm 25,000 gp
Shield: Light
Property: You do not need to use your shield hand to gain
the shield’s bonus to AC and Reflex; it floats about within
your reach as if you wielded it. You can use your shield
hand to hold another item, climb, wield a weapon, make
attacks and so on. If you have a free hand, you may count
as wielding a shield as a free action. Attempts to take away
the shield are resolved as if you wielded it normally.
Power (Daily F Healing): Immediate Interrupt. Trigger: You are
hit by an attack targeting AC or Reflex. Effect: You gain a
+2 power bonus to the targeted defense for the triggering
attack, and you can spend a healing surge.
About the Author
Matt Sernett is a writer and game designer for Wizards of the
Coast who has worked on both the Dungeons & Dragons®
and Magic: the Gathering® games. Recent credits include
Monster Vault, Neverwinter Campaign Guide, Hero Builder’s Hand-
book, and Scars of Mirrodin for Magic: the Gathering. When
he’s not making monsters or building worlds, he’s watching
bad fantasy movies you don’t realize exist and shouldn’t
bother to learn about.
D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
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Reflavoring Powers In my Dungeons & Dragons®
home game, I play a storm
druid, a primal controller

Customizing Your Game who harnesses the fury of

the weather to blast foes with
wind and lightning. This isn’t
By David Gibson
Illustration by Tony Foti some new, unreleased build
that I’m play-testing; I just
reflavored my druid’s powers.

Every power comes with its own fluff: a

couple lines of flavor text under the ­power’s
name that describes how the power looks
in action. That this text is seemingly irrel-
evant to the use of the power is not a flaw
but a strength of the game. Players can
choose how their characters’ powers act,
customizing each for the theme of the char-
acter or feel of the campaign. One fighter
using cleave might strike so hard that the
blow continues through one enemy into the
next, but another might describe his attack
hitting one target so hard that the foe is
slammed into the monster standing beside
(the latter fighter might change cleave into
Three Stooges strike).
Reflavoring or even renaming individ-
ual powers is easy. Returning to my druid,
there was no level 1 encounter power
with the desired weather or storm vibe,
so I turned thorn spray into debris spray.
I described it as “summoning a wind to
blow loose stones and detritus at my foes.”
Mechanically it is the same power with
the same damage and same range, but it
fits the character much better than the
plant-based default.

TM & © 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC. All rights reserved. D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
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It’s even possible to reflavor an entire class.
Instead of a rechristening a few powers, altering a
class entails changing the name and feel of every
power and even a few class features. The monk class
is an excellent candidate. The default monk is an
East-Asian martial artist—the Shaolin monk that gave
the class its name. This does not fit the feel of many
European-inspired campaign settings. It’s easy to re-
imagine the class as a western pugilist, pulling off his
doublet and rolling-up his sleeves before engaging in
fisticuffs. Crane’s wings becomes hard right hook, drag-
on’s tail changes to haymaker, and the f lurry of blows
class feature is renamed f lurry to the solar plexus.
An even more extreme example would embrace the
monk’s place in the psionic power source. Imagine a
monk that made only soft gestures with their attacks,
using telekinetic force to deliver damage instead of
muscle and might. Instead of back-flipping and dash-
ing across the battlefield, the character might float half
an inch off the ground while toppling foes with a wave
of the hand. This character could keep the names of
powers as-is or rename them to emulate those of other
psionic classes: dancing cobra becomes kinetic thrust,
drunken monkey transitions into hammer of the third eye,
and flurry of blows becomes flurry of the mind.
Be sure to tell your Dungeon Master what you’re
doing before you set about renaming all your powers
and especially before the DM spends five minutes
searching for your renamed power in a rulebook or
the D&D Compendium. It only disrupts the flow of the
game if you need to stop in the middle of combat to
explain that your “wizard” is actually a master alche-
mist throwing an explosive alchemical vial in place
of a fireball. Aalways make a note of the original name
and source of the power in case you need a quick
rule check.
Reflavoring Powers: Customizing Your Game
Reflavored Races chance might not be the result of a halfling’s good for-
tune but instead the character using their misleading
A character’s class is their primary feature, but race
innocent appearance to cause an opponent to hesi-
is the second defining element. It, too, can be easily
tate. Rename the power deceiving appearance and little
reflavored. For the most part, the Dungeon Master
else is required.
establishes the flavor of races, deciding to follow the
default assumptions of the published books or deviate
with an alternate view of the race more suited to the
In the Past
Reflavoring is not a new concept, but in older editions
campaign world. Problems can occur when a player’s
of the Dungeons & Dragons game, it was chiefly
view of what they want the race to be differs from the
confined to martial characters. Spell descriptions told
DM’s. One solution to this dilemma is reflavoring a race.
what they did and how they looked, but melee attacks
Uncommon races, especially those new to 4th
were left entirely to the Dungeon Master. A creative
Edition, are the most likely to cause problems. For
and quick-witted DM could turn four rounds of
example, the genasi are found only in the Forgotten
simple melee attacks into a wild cinematic ride with
Realm’s Players Guide, so some DMs might decide they
evocative descriptions of parries, thrusts, and skilled
are inappropriate for a homebrew setting. Instead of
blows despite the mechanics of each attack being
fighting that ruling, the player could instead re-imagine
identical and rather bland.
the genasi into a race that does fit their DM’s world or
Player characters could always be customized
even transplant the genasi’s racial abilities onto another
through description. Depending on how they were
race that the DM will allow. Perhaps the player’s genasi
presented, a rogue using sneak attack might be tar-
character is instead a unique human with elemental
geting a vital area, skilfully hitting a less armoured
powers related to their class, such as an earthsoul genasi
portion of the body, or using surprise to strike the
warden focusing on earth powers; a windsoul genasi
unwary. R.A. Salvatore’s halfling character, Regis, is
might be transformed into an eladrin subrace that hails
not portrayed as a deadly killer with skill or knowl-
from a specific part of the Feywild—the rare skystrider
edge of anatomy, but in game terms is as much of a
eladrin of the towering spire-trees of Saerlina.
backstabbing rogue as the assassin Artemis Entreri.
Sometimes, races can also be reflavored into some-
The mechanics and flavor of spells were intermin-
thing that’s not otherwise available in the game. This
gled in earlier editions, and descriptions sometimes
can be older material that has not yet been updated
included subtle mechanical elements. A fireball spell
to 4th Edition—for example, a windsoul genasi
would have been difficult to repurpose into an innate
being transformed into a raptoran (with windwalker
ability, for example, because it could be detonated
renamed swiftwing f light) or an illumian customized
early and occasionally needed to be aimed. Chang-
from a half-elf (dilettante renamed with an appropri-
ing a spell into an innate ability or alchemical device
ate illumian word). A player wishing to play a young
could also be seen as an attempt to bypass restrictions
child might opt for a halfling. Although the character
on spell-based magic such as anti-magic fields and
is an immature human, the character uses the half-
spell resistance.
ling’s racial ability bonuses and racial power. Second
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 Reflavoring Powers: Customizing Your Game

Changing Damage normally be potent against. Because undead are resis- Encounter Power: For the level 1 encounter
tant to necrotic damage and vulnerable to radiant, evil power, I chose clarion call (from Arcane Power) which
So far, we’ve only discussed changing descriptions and
clerics might have some problems dealing damage. describes “Yuri the Hunter, and the sound of his
not rules. But the theme of some characters is depen-
For similar reasons, keywords should be changed bellowing horn,” a blast 3 power that does thunder
dent on their damage type. No matter what lightning
only with great care. Altering a Fear power to a damage. It effortlessly becomes hoof of the Horned
bolt is called or how much it is reflavored, it will not fit
Charm power or vice versa seems like a small change, King: “You invoke the Horned King and with a stamp
the idiom of a flame wizard unless it does fire damage.
but it does change the monsters that are affected of your hoof against the ground, buffet your enemies
It is also possible to change the damage type of
(and unaffected) by the power. If the DM plans to with a mighty shockwave.”
powers or feats to better fit a character—with the
use many monsters that are resistant or vulnerable to Daily Power: I chose vile brand (from Dragon 382)
Dungeon Master’s permission. For example, a dispro-
both, then making that change will have less impact as the level 1 daily power, mostly because minotaurs
portionate number of feats favor cold-using characters;
on the numbers and is well worth allowing. are bovines and distinguished by their brand. The
changing those feats to another damage type should not
name is fine, but it could also be renamed brand of
automatically break the game. Such a change should not
be made lightly, without considering the ramifications,
An Example Baphomet. Instead of just branding your enemy with
To illustrate how all of this works, let’s look at a a generic mark, it becomes the symbol of your patron.
and certainly not without consulting the DM.
sample character. A solid theme is important, and The power also allows the warlock to take damage on
Simply changing one damage type for another
I want a strong connection between race and class. a miss in order to not expend the power. I envision this
seems harmless, because the power is otherwise
I don’t want a combination that already has powers as the warlock’s own brand reheating as they renew
unaffected, but not all damage types are equal. Fire
designed to complement the pairing, because then I their oath of fealty to the Horned King. This doesn’t
and necrotic damage are among the most resisted
won’t need to reflavor anything. just rename and reflavor the power but adds depth to
damage types in the game. A character who special-
Class Feature: Minotaurs have a background tie to the character: warlock minotaurs now show allegiance
izes in those keywords is at a small disadvantage.
the demon lord Baphomet, which creates a great story by scarring their flesh with the symbol of their master.
Other damage types, such as thunder and force, are
hook for an infernal warlock, but no warlock powers Utility Power: Thinking ahead to when the char-
very seldom resisted, and switching to them grants
reference the Horned King. Infernal warlocks gain the acter hits level 2, I’m already considering eyes of the
a subtle advantage. Likewise, some classes special-
class feature Dark One’s Blessing; this reflavors nicely Spider Queen, which grants darkvision and the ability
ize in particular types of damage, so altering feats to
to Baphomet’s Blessing. Instead of gaining vitality from to see invisible creatures. Minotaurs of past editions
accommodate that damage type gives those classes a
fallen enemies, the warlock might refuse to fall, ignor- did have darkvision and scent, making this power a
slight advantage. Divine classes heavily favor radiant
ing wounds out of sheer, bull-headed stubbornness. nice throwback. I’ll call it senses of the beast. While the
damage and will have a broader choice of powers that
At-Will Powers: Minotaurs favor melee attacks, so it power mechanically grants enhanced sight, which
benefit from feats augmenting radiant damage attacks.
makes sense to swap eldritch blast for eldritch strike (from would go away if the character is blinded, it is an easy
Divine classes are an interesting example, because
Player’s Handbook Heroes: Series 1). Eldritch strike might be switch to describe it as the ability to see the invisible
most assume that the character follows a Good god.
described as a magic-infused gore attack or as a weapon through an enhanced sense of smell.
There are no alternate powers for clerics of Evil gods
or even sinister clerics of Unaligned gods. A frequent being surrounded in an aura resembling twin horns.
About the Author
suggestion for making an evil cleric is to swap radiant Once you start, it’s tempting to reflavor everything, David “Jester” Gibson is an elementary school librarian
damage for necrotic damage. This puts the character but if something works then leave it be. It’s less to and experienced amateur writer. You can find his work on
remember later, and you can focus on what doesn’t his Wizards of the Coast Community site blog, the At-Will
at a slight disadvantage, however, especially against
blog, the Fraternity of Shadows fansite, and the Power Source
undead–creatures that divine characters would work. A perfect example is hellish rebuke, which works
podcast. This is his first work for Dragon magazine.
perfectly with its description of anger and pain.

D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
50
 “My son, we have come to the end. I
can teach you no more. I release you
from your apprenticeship,” said the
old man.
  “But father, surely you have more
lessons! I don’t feel ready,” said the
young man.
  “Chisel and stone, boy! What you
feel is fear. Fear of the unknown. You
have mastered all I—in fact, you have
taught me. You will be a greater
runesmith than I ever was.”
  The boy was silent for a time. In
the dim light cast by the forge fire, the
old man could see a question in the
youth’s eyes. His patience had limits,
so the old man eventually snapped,

Class Acts: Runepriest “What? What troubles you?”

  The boy looked up, eyes reflecting
flames. “You have held something

  Lost Runes of Unmaking back.”

  The old man arched an eyebrow,
but said nothing. It was his turn to
By Robert J. Schwalb look away.
Illustration by Wayne England   “There is one thing you have not
taught me. The rune on your ham-
mer. I have tried to copy it. Each
time, I became lost in the pattern.”

TM & © 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC. All rights reserved. D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
51

  For long minutes the old man remained
silent, chewing his lip, causing his beard
to bristle. The boy waited.
  The old man broke the silence by blow-
ing out his breath. He fixed the boy with
as serious a gaze as he could muster and
said, “That, my son, is not for you. Even if
I wanted to teach it to you, I couldn’t.”
  “I don’t understand.”
  “That is not my rune to give. Should
you prove worthy, the rune will find you.”
The Lattice of Heaven shattered. Divine dominions
burned in the Astral Sea. Below, stars fell to earth
while continents tore themselves from their founda-
tions, some sliding into the seas while others drifted,
crashing into other lands. Chaos ran unchecked and
the Dawn War dimmed Creation’s future. Desper-
ate to consolidate their gains, the gods compromised
their values by making alliances with their darker
brethren and fielding armies of abominations to meet
the elemental flood spilling into their plane. They
went further, bestowing potent weapons on their
servants to match those wielded by the primordials’
followers. History shows the gods emerged the vic-
tors, the primordials cast down, bound in chains, and
sealed away for all time. Yet the weapons and magic
created were left behind, no longer needed. These
tools were hidden, imprisoned, and safeguarded to
prevent their exploitation by misguided mortals or
other powers.
Among the many relics left from the Dawn War
are the Runes of Unmaking. At one time, there were
upwards of a dozen, each fabricated to contend with
the elemental servants arrayed against the gods and
their legions. A mortal bearing such a rune could
shrug off boiling flames, withstand a hurricane, or
keep his or her feet in the worst quake. The magic the
runes contained could be summoned to lend incred-
ible power to the wielder’s attacks, power enough
to shatter mountains and part seas. As with other
weapons from these ancient times, the runes proved
too dangerous for mortals to wield, so the gods sought
to undo their creation. But the runes proved too
powerful for even divine hands to undo, and so it was
decided that they would be hidden in the most forlorn
places, their names erased from the histories, and
their wielders recalled to live out their days under
the gods’ watchful eyes. For centuries, the Runes of
Unmaking have lain dormant, nearly forgotten, lost to
the world and the planes, and even to the gods’ own
memories. Such power, however, rarely stays hidden
for long.
Runes of U nmaking
Four major runes are described in this article, each
demonstrating one technique the gods used to over-
come their elemental enemies. One does not just buy
a Rune of Unmaking; each must be found and mas-
tered, usually as a reward from completing a quest.
Once acquired, the rune is an alternative reward (see
Dungeon Master's Guide 2), much like a divine boon.
Rune of Fiery Might
The rune unfurls into a fiery line that reaches out to burn
you. Yet when it touches your f lesh, you are not scorched.
Instead, you feel your fury rise, inf lamed by the rune’s
potent magic.
Class Acts: Runepriest
The Rune of Fiery Might finds its origins in a deadly
contest between Moradin and Imix. The Elemental
Prince of Fire, bound as he was to Tharizdun, threw
his forces against the god of the forge at the Battle of
Nine Peaks. Moradin smote the corrupted primordial,
casting the squirming prince down to the Elemental
Chaos where he would later be bound in adamantine
chains. As he fell, the primordial’s ichors etched a
blazing rune into Moradin’s hammer, a rune that later
flared with dread power whenever the god gave into
his wrath. Moradin controlled the rune’s fury, and
bestowed its knowledge on his prized followers with
great reluctance—for though the rune offered great
power, it could also poison its wielder’s soul.
Gaining the Rune
The Halls of Agrandor grace one of the first fastnesses
raised by the dwarven lords of old. The fortress city
withstood invasion by orcs, sieges by giants, and arson
by the hated dragon Ichendethé. So strong proved
this fortress, the Acolytes of Stone and Steel chose the
site to inter Rothgen, a famed runepriest who was the
last to master the Rune of Fiery Might. They sealed
away their fallen hero deep in a vault protected by
devoted homunculi and cunning traps, certain none
would disturb the runepriest’s rest.
The world turned and an age died. Spriggan invad-
ers drove the complacent and greedy dwarves out and
laid claim to the cavernous halls, polluting them with
their filthy presence. The invaders have ventured
into the deep chambers, drawn by the rune’s whis-
pers, though none have found the hiding place and
returned to tell about it. But it is just a matter of time
before the spriggans overcome the defenders and
plunder these most sacred vaults.
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Rune of Fiery Might Level 19 Rare
Summoning the rune’s magic causes liquid fire to fill its etch-
ings until they blaze with brilliant light.
Alternative Reward: Lost Rune 105,000 gp
Property: Whenever you would enter a new rune state, you
can enter the rune state of fiery might instead. While in
this state, when you hit with an attack, enemies adjacent to
you take 10 fire damage.
Power (Daily F Fire, Teleportation): Immediate Interrupt. Trig-
ger: You are hit by an attack. Effect: Each enemy adjacent
to you takes 10 fire damage. You then teleport up to 5
squares.
Rune of Stone Eternal
The granite slab bears a strange runic marking. This mark
is not chiseled, but rather appears to be a pattern in the
stone itself. Touching the rune, you feel strange power f low
into you, a sudden strength and resilience unlike anything
you have known.
Stolen from the Lattice of Heaven by primordial
forces in the Dawn War’s earliest phase, this rune’s
theft unraveled the divine plan for a unified heaven
and changed history’s course forever. The Rune of
Stone Eternal was a mystical glyph that gave the Lat-
tice strength enough to bind the different dominions.
Though removed from its original purpose, the Rune
of Stone Eternal offers incredible strength to those
who master its power.
Gaining the Rune
The Stone King, called the Living Rock by his giant
underlings, is nearly forgotten in the modern era. He
once ruled the distant Skyclaw Peaks, now a line of
weathered, tree-covered mountains in the far west.
Legends of the king’s identity abound; some claim he
was a goliath chieftain, others a stone giant despot, and
still others believe he was a fierce primordial sired by
Class Acts: Runepriest
First Creator Annam. Whatever the truth, the tales Rune of Storm Unabated
agree that the Stone King had a palace on a mountain
Lightning slashes through the heavens, thunder booms all
aerie, reached by a perilous road that wound up into
around. For a moment, in the afterglow of the sudden light,
the jagged peaks. According to goliath tribesmen who
you think you see an unexpected pattern.
claim descent from the ancient monarch, it toppled
into a mountain valley some two centuries ago, where
There are storms and then there is the storm. After
its shattered remains can still be found.
the Lattice of Heaven fell into ruin, Kord descended
While the lands are littered with similar wreck-
from the heavens to hunt down the primordials’ ser-
age and half-remembered legends, what makes the
vants in the Elemental Chaos. Wrath blinded him
Stone King so interesting is that the tyrant lived for
to the risks and the destruction he wrought, for he
several centuries, if the old tales can be believed. The
would leave no mountain intact in his searching.
source of this remarkable longevity was his throne. It
Before he could cause too much trouble, the dreaded
was a massive thing, made from solid granite, rough
slaad lord Ygorl confronted the god. The two fought
and unworked. So long as the Stone King sat upon the
to a standstill, for the closer the Lord of Entropy
throne, no weapon could harm him and no poison
moved to the beginning of time, the more powerful
could sicken him. The throne was even rumored
he became. No strike the battle god made could slow
to hold time at bay. The goliaths claim the throne’s
Ygorl’s ravenous scythe. Kord knew he faced certain
power sourced from a strange pattern in its back, a
doom standing alone against the slaad’s horrid might.
complex rune placed there in ancient days by the
With one mighty roar, he leapt up into the heavens,
gods as a promise. While the rune endured, the gods
masking his retreat with a boiling storm which
would maintain the prisons that ensured the world
blocked any pursuit.
would be free from future contests between elemen-
tal and divine.
Gaining the Rune
This divine storm has never dispersed, lingering even
Rune of Stone Eternal Level 20 Rare
now, growing and shrinking with the god’s ferocious
You awaken the ancient rune to gird yourself in divine power.
temper. The storm captured the god’s voice and gave
Alternative Reward: Lost Rune 125,000 gp
it form as a rune, visible only when the storm’s light-
Property: Whenever you would enter a new rune state, you
can enter the rune state of stone eternal instead. While in ning strikes an elemental creature. Many of Kord’s
this state, you gain resist 10 to all damage. servants crusade into the Elemental Chaos in hopes
Power (Daily): Immediate Interrupt. Trigger: You are hit by an
of witnessing the holy tempest and, in doing so, earn
attack. Effect: You turn to stone until the start of your next
turn. While turned to stone, you cannot move, you take the magnificent rune said to contain a fragment of
a -5 penalty to all defenses, and you gain resist 30 to all the battle god’s vast power.
damage.
D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
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Rune of Storm Unabated Level 16 Rare
Sparks fly from the rune when you access its power and thun-
der growls in your footsteps.
Alternative Reward: Lost Rune 45,000 gp
Property: Whenever you would enter a new rune state, you
can enter the rune state of storm unabated. While in this
state, your runepriest at-will attack powers deal 2d6 extra
lightning and thunder damage.
Power (Daily F Lightning, Thunder): Standard Action. Attack:
Area burst 1 within 5 (creatures in the burst); + 19 vs. Re-
flex. Hit: 10 lightning and thunder damage, and the target
is dazed until the end of your next turn.
Rune of Tide Inexorable
The murky waters boiled and seethed, a frothing mass
heralding the island’s rise. Breaking the unruly seas, a
dark obelisk stood upon a filthy black island nearly a mile
across. Kelp clung to the rock as if in modesty, dripping with
noisome brown slime. Through the mess shone a silvery
rune. All who beheld the rune felt pulled to it, to bathe in its
unwholesome light.
The chains binding the fallen primordials owe their
creation to Moradin’s forge and Kord’s strength, yet
not all the Dawn Titans were bound by these cham-
pions. The gods shackled their foes through various
means; by forcing them from this reality altogether,
their names erased from history’s annals, or using
the world itself to confine the tempestuous monsters.
When Melora defeated Cryonax to gain mastery of
the waves, slaughtering his demonic and elemental
servants that sailed the frozen northern seas, she
plunged the primordial into a deep trench and sealed
him beneath her great stone shield. The rune adorn-
ing her shield holds Cryonax imprisoned. Though it
cannot be removed, the sigil may lend its power to a
worthy champion.
Class Acts: Runepriest
Gaining the Rune About the Author
Robert J. Schwalb is one of the world’s most interesting
The rune holding Cryonax’s vault closed weak- people. When he’s not traveling the world, fighting crime
ens. From time to time the prison rises from the and impressing the ladies, he blows into his office in Tennes-
deeps—breaking the waves and f loating, a sinister see where he rattles off a few words that mysteriously make
themselves into books and articles for your reading pleasure.
island—only to sink once more, leaving a noxious
A discerning reader might find his name in some one hun-
stench, black ice, and an oily smear to mark its pas- dred fifty books and articles he’s produced for games such
sage. The vault rose not long ago and was discovered as Dungeons & Dragons® , Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, A
Song of Ice and Fire RPG, Star Wars RPG, and the d20 system. If
by the dragon Veng, who proved unprepared for
you remain unconvinced, you ought to take a look at Monster
the entrapped primordial’s inf luence. The utterly Manual 3, Player’s Handbook 3, and Martial Power 2. He’s in
mad dragon lairs on the island, using it as a base there. Promise.
to launch strikes against passing ships and nearby
coastal villages. All the while, the rune on the obe-
lisk at the island’s center shines with a baleful light,
awaiting a hero to take its power and send the island
back to the depths.
Rune of Tide Inexorable Level 17 Rare
Calling upon the silvery blue rune, you hear distant, crashing
waves as its power suffuses you.
Alternative Reward: Lost Rune 65,000 gp
Property: Whenever you would enter a new rune state,
you can enter the rune state of tide inexorable instead.
While in this state, you can choose to be immune to
forced movement. In addition, whenever you are slowed
or immobilized by an effect that a save can end, you can
immediately make a saving throw to end that effect.
Power (Daily): Minor Action. Effect: Close burst 3 (creatures in
the burst). You push each target up to 3 squares. Aftereffect:
Close burst 5 (creatures in the burst). You pull each target
up to 3 squares.
D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
54
Unearthed Arcana:
  The Awakened Psion
By Peter Schaefer and Robert J. Schwalb
Illustration by Craig J. Spearing
The methods used to gain psionic energy might be
similar from one psion to another, but how they
manifest the energy varies a great deal between the
competing orders and philosophies found in the
world. Telekinesis and telepathy are the dominant
methods, but those broad categories encompass
many “sciences” taught within the different psionic
institutions. In effect, these foci represent aggre-
gates of different approaches to and techniques for
mastering what some call psionic magic. In simpler
terms, a science is composed of several disciplines
united under a single theme that is pioneered by a
psion from the past and taught to each succeeding
generation, or that is uncovered through painstaking
research and meditation.
The powers described in Player’s Handbook 3
are not just the most common, but also the most
acceptable disciplines known in the world. They
only scratch the surface of what psions can achieve.
Whole worlds of thought exist within the psionic
community on the ways in which even time and
space can serve the individual mind. One such
trend—a relatively recent one—is adhered to by
those who take the best telepathic concepts and
TM & © 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC. All rights reserved.
push against their limits. They venture beyond the
accepted methods into proscribed territory, where
new expressions and avenues for channeling the
mind’s energy can be explored. Most telepaths favor
disciplines that allow contact with some other indi-
vidual. Through contact, the psion can manipulate
another’s emotions, sensations, and even thoughts.
Such connections are short-lived—a mere touch.
Long-standing wisdom and experience among those
who practice the psionic art holds that prolonged
contact with another mind invites a serious danger
to the psion’s mental state. Deeper contact can result
in an inadvertent merging of consciousness. Anyone
who has seen the effect of such “personality pollu-
tion” tends to heed the warnings against extensive
invasion into a single mind.
The “awakened,” as they call themselves with no
small pride, ignore or entirely reject these prohibi-
tions. They push deep into other minds, where they
let their own thoughts take root until their percep-
tions merge with the subject’s. Doing so frees the
psion’s thoughts from the confinement of their own
skulls and lets them sense the world, on a temporary
basis, through another.
D e c e m b e r 2 010 | D r ag o n 3 9 4
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Apologists downplay the danger this practice
poses, but there are genuine long-terms risks associ-
ated with this technique. Psions who dabble too much
in this science might be polluted by their foes. When
they retreat to their own minds, they might drag back
memories, emotions, and urges not their own. An
awakened psion must be vigilant against these exter-
nal influences and recognize them for what they are.
Those who lapse can find other personalities taking
root and causing irrevocable personality changes that
frequently end in tragedy.
Even the cautionary examples of psions who crip-
pled their minds with personality intrusions are not
enough to keep all psions on guard against personal-
ity pollution. Some psions take few if any precautions,
or even welcome contamination for the insights it
brings. They object to the notion that psychic scraps
slowly drive a person insane. Quite the opposite; they
claim that the merging of many personality fragments
slowly transforms them into something greater than
themselves. They see the world from multiple per-
spectives, through other beings’ filters, and open their
minds wide to accept the secret truths that are denied
to others.
This is an extreme view. It is possible to take psy-
chic risks while dipping into another’s mind without
stripping oneself bare of defenses. The benefits vary:
insights into an opponent’s mind can reveal secret
caches of loot, passwords, trade secrets, and personal
information useful for bluffs, bribes, and blackmail.
The risk can be reduced, but it can never be elimi-
nated. Awakened psions accept the risk routinely,
while more cautious types only nibble at the edges
without ever taking a full bite.
Unearthed Arcana: The Awakened Psion
Rewards believable the thought is, the more likely it is to
be believed.
The awakened cast their minds deep into the minds
F Sample Personality: You delve deeper and
of their foes to ensure their effectiveness—at the risk
snatch tidbits from the target’s mind and
of mental contamination. Any psion can use these
memory, determined by the DM. These can
techniques, but they are favored by those who focus
include useful information such as secret
on telepathy.
handshakes or code words, who has a key to
Before you make an attack roll for a psion attack
the vault, or personal data such as the target’s
that targets Will, you can choose to delve into the
name, ambitions, and what it actually thinks of
mind of your target. If your attack hits, in addition to
its master. Having this information might grant
the normal effect, you can draw information from the
bonuses to social or other skill checks, at the
target’s mind. Choose one of the following:
DM’s discretion.
F Borrow Sight: In addition to your own sight,
F Shared Kinesthesia: You share the target’s
you see all creatures and objects the target
awareness of its body and location. You ignore
can see, from the target’s position. You can
any concealment or total concealment the target
determine line of sight and line of effect for
has until the end of your next turn.
ranged psionic attacks from your space or the
F Skim Mind: You learn the target’s thoughts and
target’s space. This effect lasts until the end of
emotions, determined by the DM. These tend to
your next turn.
be surface thoughts (no one thinks deeply in the
F Learn Intentions: You learn the target’s
middle of a fight). They might be immediately
likeliest reaction to the current tactical
useful, such as which squares not to step on or
situation. The DM decides and divulges to you
which direction reinforcements are approaching
what actions the target will take on its next
from. Or they might be dramatically interesting,
turn, given the information it has. Should the
such as the enemy’s anxiety over losing a lucky
situation change significantly, the target might
talisman just before the fight or intense fear of
take a different action.
not stopping the intruders, because of what the
F Plant Thought: You leave one of your thoughts
master does to those who fail.
or feelings in the target. This thought is not
strong enough to control the target, but it can
change the target’s actions in subtle ways. The
belief that reinforcements will arrive at any
moment might keep a monster from fleeing; the
thought that an enemy is just one wound away
from collapsing (when in fact he is the strongest
member of the party) can change a monster’s
plan of attack. How the implanted thought
affects the target is up to the DM. The more
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Dangerous Delving
Some forms of delving bear greater risk than those
above. When you choose to delve, you can choose
from among the following options instead of the
above options, but there is a price to pay. If your
attack hits, choose one of the following.
F Detect Weakness: You gravitate toward the
target’s greatest fears and insecurities and
exploit them. Your attack deals +1d10 extra
damage per tier. This requires that you identify
with the target’s self-perceived weaknesses and
increases the potential baggage you carry back
to your own mind.
F Foster Insecurity: You leave behind new fears
and insecurities designed to grow into full-
fledged self-doubt before the target’s next action.
The target takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls until
the end of your next turn. Such doubt must be
transplanted healthy from rich soil—your own
true fears are all that will do, giving the target’s
mind more dangerous exposure to yours.
F Manipulate Muscles: You impose some of
your own muscle memory and reflexes over
the target’s. Until the start of your next turn,
the target cannot shift—the conflict over which
muscles do what is too great for so careful an act.
The process of merging such fundamental an
aspect of yourself opens your mind to danger.
F Unnerving Duplication: You superimpose
your own sense of self over the target’s. It lasts
long enough to ensure that the target takes a -5
penalty on attack rolls against you until the start
of your next turn and then evaporates. Even so,
sharing something so personal with a stranger in
mind-to-mind contact is not healthy.
Unearthed Arcana: The Awakened Psion
It bears repeating that the decision to delve, or to
delve deeply, must be declared before you make
the attack roll. If you forget to make this declaration
before the die hits the table, then you did not delve.
Critical Success
An awakened psion can always sense more of the
target mind while delving. It is a murky lake, full of
mysterious and intriguing objects just out of reach
or out of sight, like a massive shadow. On a critical
hit, the awakened psion discovers that the lake is
clear and everything is hers to explore and manipu-
late. She has cast herself into the very center of the
target’s mind. At such a time, the target’s mind is
laid bare to you. In addition to encouraging the DM
to be generous with the results of your delve, you
can also dominate the target until the end of your
next turn.
Risks
All of this power comes at a price.
F When you choose to delve and you roll a natural
1, your delve goes wrong. The sensations,
memories, and emotions native to the target’s
mind overwhelm the psion.
F When you delve and roll a critical hit, the target’s
mind is clarified in a way that invites dangerous
overindulgence.
F When you perform dangerous delving, if your
attack hits and the d20 result is odd, you have
overexposed your mind.
When any of these mishaps occur, you have been
contaminated. If the attack had multiple targets, mul-
tiple mishaps can occur. Roll a d20 to determine how
you handle each psychic misstep.
Consequences of Delving
d20 Consequence
20 You feel dizzy, but there are no serious adverse
effects.
16-19 Until the end of your next turn, you are dazed
and the target can see through your eyes.
11-15 The target learns something from the surface of
your mind, determined by the DM. This is often
relevant to the current situation, such as what
powers you have available or what magic items
you’re considering using. Cooperate with the DM
when asked about your immediate intentions.
6-10 The target learns something from your memory
or about your personality, determined by the
DM. This might be relevant to the current
situation, such as what powers you have
available; longer-term, such as where your party
calls home; or personal, such as your childhood
nickname or that you hunt for your parents’
murderer. You do not know what information
the target has received.
2-5 Some of the target’s memories or personality
overwrite your own, as determined by the
DM. Memories typically overwrite similar
memories: You might believe you came from
the target’s hometown or married the target’s
spouse, or the layout of your actual home
might look foreign to you. Personality traits
are additive: You might acquire the target’s
ambition to become chief of the hobgoblins,
its fear of demons and spiders, or its prejudice
against humans (or your own race), while
retaining your natural inclinations.
1 As above (2-5). In addition, you briefly share
all the target’s goals and intentions. You might
even believe that you are the target. The DM
controls your character until the end of your
next turn with this in mind.
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Dungeon Master’s
Guidelines
This system calls for some DM adjudication. It
has to be that way because of the many effects
that are governed by character and story rather
than combat mechanics. As a general rule,
when a delve succeeds, provide the player
with an interesting tidbit of information that
adds some depth to the world. If the player
thinks of a creative way to use this informa-
tion to the party’s advantage, even better.
When the player succeeds on a delve with an
exciting roll—17 to 19, perhaps—then share
out something grander, something you think
is more valuable, more private to the subject,
and easier for the party to take advantage of.
Finally, on a critical hit, try to give the player
exactly what you think he or she is looking for.
After all, they’re paying for it.
When deciding the worst effects of a delve
gone wrong, aim for story significance, not petty
difficulty. It’s interesting to lose the memory
of a brother, best friend, childhood nickname,
or hometown. It’s only frustrating to lose the
memory of the party’s hireling such that the
psion takes damage every time he goes to get
50’ feet of rope from the group pack. Likewise,
gaining the personality trait “I don’t use magic”
or something equally debilitating is obnoxious.
Choose instead something that comes into play
while the group is exploring social or story situ-
ations, not during combat (or at least not often
during combat).
Unearthed Arcana: The Awakened Psion
The DM can select any effect bound to a result higher
than the one you roll.
Dissonance
The consequences to delving may seem light. Some
treat them so, accepting their altered minds as the
natural result of expanding awareness. Those who
struggle against them, intentionally or through sub-
conscious association with the lost traits, suffer.
When you act according to a memory you have
lost, or when you act against a personality trait you
have gained (but not one you developed naturally),
you suffer mental dissonance and take psychic
damage equal to your healing surge value. If you
acquire the long-term goal of placing Tiamat on a
throne above other gods yet you participate in cast-
ing down her altars, you will feel pain as two parts of
your mind struggle against each other.
These gained or altered traits never return to
normal. Muscle memory of the layout of one’s bed-
room can redevelop over time, but those memories
are being made anew. If the memory of your first
kiss is wiped out by the evil sorcerer’s similar
memory with an evil first girlfriend, yours is gone
from your mind. Only powerful mind magic beyond
the grasp of modern mortals could return it, and
that, too, has a price. Likewise, new personality traits
never fade.
After enough adventuring, most awakened psions
have at least one pair of conflicting traits and risk
experiencing dissonance. The danger in doing
anything increases exponentially as the number of
conflicting factors increases. These are all additive:
When you betray more than one delving-gained trait
at a time, you take the damage from dissonance for
each trait that is in conflict. When you have no choice
but to betray one new trait or another, you are guar-
anteed to take damage.
Consider Phli Bos, one of the awakened who finds
himself in a bind. While delving too deeply in a
kobold’s mind, he came out with a sincere belief that
dragons are godly beings who must be worshipped.
Later, when dealing with an errant knight who was in
his way, Phli picked up a certainty that dragons are a
scourge to be destroyed. Normally, these don’t bother
Phli much, because he doesn’t spend much time
thinking about dragons. But today, one is perched
right in front of him, and he faces a choice: treat it as
majesty, try to wipe it out, or disobey both personal-
ity fragments and do his own thing, such as treating
it as an equal. Choosing option one or two gives him
psychic damage from dissonance. Option three gives
him twice as much psychic damage, because Phli suf-
fers dissonance with two personality traits instead of
just one.
It is this inevitability that destroys all awakened
sooner or later. Every psion who delves without
extreme prejudice will one day break down into
a shattered mirror of stolen memories and partial
personalities. They are dangerous and unpredictable
characters.
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The Distilled Dream
Practitioners of psionic magic who care about the
public image of their art shun awakened psions. The
Distilled Dream is a loose association of ardents,
battleminds, and psions who hunt and put down
awakened madmen.
A similar organization, Of the Stained Glass,
consists of awakened psions who believe they can
control their minds and must end the misery of any
who cannot.
Shardminds inhabit both groups in unusually
large numbers. There is a whispered belief that the
awakened might have keys to the Living Gate’s recon-
struction, or its final destruction. Some shardminds
hunt mad psions in the hope that they will find such
knowledge in an awakened and shattered mind.
Others believe that the dissolution of the mental
boundaries between souls weakens the border
between the world and the Far Realm. Still others
think it might strengthen that boundary.
Among the awakened themselves, there is a persis-
tent rumor-cum-legend regarding an awakened psion
who serves one of the gods—some say Ioun, some
say Vecna or Torog—and who suffers no ill effects
from her delving. Any traces of her targets’ minds
that return with her are stored in a crystal she wears
around her neck, a personality fragment or memory
imprisoned safely away from her consciousness.
When the crystal prison fills, say the stories, she fuses
the mental rubble into a whole and wholly mad mind
and creates a body for it to wear—or perhaps she gives
it to her god for that entity’s use.
Unearthed Arcana: The Awakened Psion
Caveat Emptor
Players, know what you are getting into when you
choose to play an awakened psion. You will be one of
the most flexible mental magicians in the game, steal-
ing information, leaving lost thoughts in enemies. You
will know many secrets and dangle many minds from
your puppeteer’s strings.
You will also someday implode. If you are unlucky,
you will plummet from the lofty state of a pristine
and controlled mind to the chaos of a mind with a
thousand visitors and no one to mop up their muddy
footprints. With better fortune, you will keep your
growing inconstancy in check for a longer period—but
you will one day snap.
Play the awakened psion when you want to act out
enemies’ whims from time to time, and when you
appreciate gaining and playing with strange quirks of
character. You can’t be afraid of losing control of your
character, because the DM will sometimes decide
what your character does, and other times remind
you of a foreign influence that you must obey or suffer
the consequences.
Most importantly, be satisfied with a glorious, cha-
otic, broken-minded end to your character, whenever
it should come. Because one day, your character will
become unplayable. Look forward to it.
Unearthed Arcana
This is an “Unearthed Arcana” article, which
means that it is an unofficial variant for the
Dungeons & Dragons game. You won’t find
these options in the D&D Character Builder, the
D&D Compendium, or any printed rulebooks. If
you’d like to use these awakened psion rules for
your character, be sure to discuss it in advance
with your DM and get his or her OK.
About the Author
Robert J. Schwalb is an award-winning game designer who
has contributed design to or developed over one hundred role-
playing game titles for Dungeons & Dragons®, War­hammer
Fantasy Roleplay, A Song of Ice and Fire RPG, Star Wars RPG, and
the d20 system. Some of his more recent work for Wizards of
the Coast can be found in Player’s Handbook 3, Martial Power 2,
and Draconomicon 2: Metallic Dragons. In addition, he’s a regu-
lar contributor to both Dragon and Dungeon magazines. Robert
lives, works, and will probably die in Tennessee.
Peter Schaefer beats Rob Schwalb alphabetically by a
hair. In fact, he does all things alphabetically. He doesn’t get
up in the morning; he Ascends from Bed, then Continues
Downstairs to Eat. It’s not easy, but hey, you gotta be crazy
somehow. For years, Peter has artfully been contributing
design to every freakin’ game he can imagine: D&D, Exalted,
Scion, World of Darkness games, and so on. It’s just killer, man.
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Born Under a
Violent Moon
The pulse quickens. Breath comes fast and heavy.
Vision sharpens. The body reacts before the mind
comprehends. In the long moments of the chase,
hunter and hunted share the same spirit. No matter

Shifters in the Forgotten Realms

By Matt Sernett
Illustration by Jeffrey Koch
how learned or civil, both become beasts. But one
mouth slavers while the other becomes dry. Both
run toward life, but at chase’s end, only one still
breathes.
Shifters understand the beast within better than
most. Descended from the union of true lycan-
thropes with humans, elves, and their ilk, shifters
often feel the pull of the moon in their blood,
ebbing and f lowing like ocean tides. Their ambigu-
ous heritage and wild souls have kept shifters on the
fringes of civilization for centuries, but the Spell-
plague threw wilderness and city alike into chaos.
Now shifters are as common as humans in some
parts of the Realms, and a few brave examples ven-
ture forth into the wider world, trying to find hope
in the points of light that dot the wide darkness of
the wild lands.

Shifter
Backgrounds
Below are several regions in the Forgotten Realms
where shifters are found. Use the backgrounds, ques-
tions, and suggestions in the entries to inspire your
shifter PC. When creating a shifter character, you
may select the normal regional benefit for your back-
ground or the alternate shifter regional benefit for
that region.

TM & © 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC. All rights reserved.

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Baldur’s Gate
Baldur’s Gate bustles with lively trade, and its people
go about their daily lives with the self-satisfied
expressions of contented citizens. But a threat lurks
in the shadows of a nearby forest. Once, beasts and
blood ran in the Baldur’s Gate streets, and the city
came within a whisker of being ruled by the moon-
cursed. Grand Duke Valarken recently attempted a
coup, backed by the werewolves of the Band of the
Red Moon, but his defeat sent them all back to the
Werewoods, the forest you called home. You don’t
know the Duke’s fate, but you do know the Band of
the Red Moon has grand designs on the region.
You come from Vehlarr, an ancient territory that
has become legend. Established centuries ago by its
elf werewolf ruler, this city of lycanthropes, elves, and
shifters floats in time and space, an effect created by
Selûne long before the Spellplague. Now it appears
only under the full moon, existing both in the Were-
wood and the Feywild, forming an unstable bridge
between planes. Though centuries have passed since
its unmooring in the world, Vehlarr has felt only 75
years of that time.
You grew up in Vehlarr, feeling the erratic influ-
ence of both worlds. When you learned of the Band
of the Red Moon’s expansion plans, you felt you had
to help. You disregarded the warnings of your lead-
ers and left, but you waited too long. By the time you
reached Baldur’s Gate, the Band of the Red Moon had
come and gone. Now you can’t return home for fear
of the welcome you’ll get from the werewolves. And
their anger at your betrayal will remain fresh for a
very long time.
Baldur’s Gate Shifter Regional Benefit
Add History to your class skill list. You gain a +2
bonus to History checks. Add Elven to your list of
known languages.
When not shifting, you resemble an elf, not a
human. Your face lacks hair, and your skin tone
is within the elven range. If you are not shifting,
this resemblance allows you to pass as elven with a
successful Bluff check against a creature’s passive
Insight. If someone makes an active Insight check
against you, your Bluff check to disguise your shifter
nature suffers a –5 penalty.
The Dalelands
A shepherd looks to the rising moon and begins to
urge his f lock home, despite the hours of summer
sun that remain in the day. A farmwife scans the
pale dirt road as it winds into the forbidding wood,
waiting for someone who will never return. A man
stops dead in his tracks, then heads home at a run
after seeing bits of blood and fur on a neighbor’s
doorframe. Such is life in the Dalelands, particularly
in Daggerdale.
Surrounded by hilly forests and rocky, mazelike
canyons, the citizens of isolated Daggerdale live in
fear of werecreatures striking their villages in the
night. The dale has never been a place friendly to
outsiders, and shifters are viewed with particular sus-
picion. Strangers could be lycanthropes in disguise,
and the folk of Daggerdale have little doubt that
shifters run with the monsters that infest the craggy
heights of the Dagger Hills.
You are a shifter related to the lycanthropes that
plague the dale. Perhaps you grew to hate the lead-
ers of your kind after witnessing too much wanton
slaughter. Maybe you were exiled, lacking your tribe’s
Born Under a Violent Moon
hunger and rage. Or perhaps you fled the area after
seeing one of your kind captured and killed by the
people of Daggerdale.
Dalelands Shifter Regional Benefit
Add Stealth and Nature to your class skill list. While
shifting, you gain a +2 bonus to Intimidate checks.
Dambrath
If the shifter race has a homeland in the Realms, it
might be the dry plains of Dambrath in the Scarred
South. Before the Spellplague, Dambrath was a
land of barbaric humans enslaved by the Crinti, a
half-drow elite. During the Spellplague, the humans
turned to emergent primal powers and lycanthropes
that resembled their old tribal totems to drive out
the Crinti. Today, shifters are common among Dam-
brath’s nomadic tribes, sharing tents and horselines
with their human cohorts. Shifters are thought to be
blessed by Malar, bestial exarch of the Dambrathan’s
patron deity, Silvanus.
You come from one of Dambrath’s famous
nomadic tribes. They say Dambrathans are born
ahorse, and your skills with a mount lend proof to the
adage. What is your tribe’s totem? Were any natural
lycanthropes in your tribe? How peaceful or brutal
were your people, and why have you ranged so far
from them?
Dambrath Shifter Regional Benefit
While you are riding a creature, you can reroll any
Acrobatics, Athletics, Endurance, or Stealth check
using the creature’s skill check bonus rather than
your own. You must use the second result.
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Durpar
The near-forgotten land of Durpar cowers in the
shadow of the Beastlands, harboring horrors within
its borders. Goblin patrols roam the streets of its
only city, Vaelan, where monstrous emissaries of the
Beast Lords come to play at diplomacy. Meanwhile,
the grassy hills and tumbled ruins of Old Vaelan
hide a deadly secret: A creature dwells in the ruined
dungeons, served by lycanthropes and other deadly
creatures. This being, known only as the Whispering
One, has demanded sacrifices from Durpar’s chakas.
Some of those the merchant cabals sacrificed were
humans, and the Whispering One saw fit to gift some
of them to his servants.
You were born of a union between a servant of the
Whispering One and its human chattel. Your parents
kept you hidden for as long as they could, shielding
you from the dark secrets of the catacombs, but they
couldn’t hide you forever. Finally, they sent you as far
away as they could. How young were you when you
left? Perhaps your parents were kind to you, but how
“good” were they?
Durpar Shifter Regional Benefit
You can reroll any Dungeoneering check, but you
must use the second result. Add Goblin to your list of
known languages.
The Great Dale
At the full moon, wolves gather outside the village
of Bezentil in the Great Dale and howl at the night
sky. Soon, travelers through the Dale are plagued by
wolves. How can the people “protected” by the druids
of the Circle of Leth not suspect what they pay for the
privilege? Do they truly not realize the druids them-
selves paw the earth outside Bezentil?
You were born into a semi-nomadic tribe of shift-
ers that roams the Forest of Lethyr. Your tribe is old,
and its origin is shrouded by the mysteries of the
Circle’s cult. Your people keep to themselves and
avoid the elves of the forest. Folk outside the Great
Dale don’t even know your tribe exists. Why did
you leave your homeland? Were you exiled for look-
ing too closely into the activities of the druids? Did
you f lee after becoming entangled with the forest
elves? Did the druids of the Circle of Leth send you
on a mission?
Great Dale Shifter Regional Benefit
You can reroll any Nature check, but you must use
the second result. Add Elven to your list of known
languages.
Born Under a Violent Moon
Luruar
Lurar, or the Silver Marches, is a safe and friendly
place to visit. Its well-maintained cities welcome all
who seek respite or a new start in the world, if they
hold justice in their hearts. But you know that repu-
tation to be a lie. You are one of the “skin-changers”
known to haunt the eastern portions of the Glimmer-
wood. You are of the People of the Black Blood.
This loose collection of shifter tribes and lycan-
thropes has stalked the area formerly known as the
Moonwood since long before the Spellplague. Malar
was their patron god, and they remain devoted to
him as the exarch of Silvanus. Many of the smaller
tribes, particularly those populated by wereboars and
werewolves, still take captives and make sacrifices
to Malar in bloody rites. Others have come to take
a broader view, and while Beastlord worship forms
the basis of their lives, there are times when their
existence is not devoted to savagery. Growing up,
you came to take pleasure in these moments, and
eventually sought out the famed hospitality of Luruar
in the hopes of learning more about another way of
life. Your attempt did not go smoothly, and you found
yourself rejected both by the People of the Black
Blood and by the citizens of the city. Clearly, you had
to forge your own path.
Luruar Shifter Regional Benefit
You add Chondathan to your list of languages known,
you add Intimidate to your class skills list, and you
gain a +2 bonus to Perception while you are shifting.
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Luskan
Luskan is described by its inhabitants as the armpit
of the world, and you can attest to that truth. Your life
began in Luskan’s sewers, and for years you followed
in the footsteps of the wererats and shifters that made
up your extended “family.” Nothing good came of
this pitiful life of foulness and violence. In fact, things
seemed to get worse every year. If your clan wasn’t
battling Shou pirates or running from undead, it was
squabbling over the meager scraps left by the beggars
and criminals Luskan calls citizens.
You knew you had to get out, but it’s never easy
to leave home behind—especially when you’re
enmeshed in a criminal underworld. But a hard life
has taught you hard lessons, and you shared what
you learned with whomever got in your way. What
was life like for you in Luskan? Did you live only in
the sewers, or did you find shelter among the sur-
face gangs? A Shou crime syndicate infiltrates the
city’s powerful—did you learn your trade from them?
Perhaps you have some exotic skills gained through
association with foreign pirates.
Luskan Shifter Regional Benefit
You can reroll any Stealth check, but you must keep
the second result. Add Shou to your list of known
languages.
Moonshae Isles
The Moonshae Isles hold many dangers, but few are
so openly threatening as the island of Moray. Giants
make dens in the island’s mountains, and a few orc
tribes scuffle in the peaks’ shadows, but the Nor-
lander villages huddle close to the island’s coasts in
fear of the Black Blood lycanthropes. This tribe was
once connected to the People of the Black Blood,
but Malar’s demotion and the tribes’ great physical
separation led to division. Now, the terror of Moray’s
coastal villages comes to the rest of the Moonshaes, as
the Black Blood’s weres and shifters take longships on
savage raids to the other islands.
Your kind is hated and feared in the Moonshae
Isles. How did you come to be on the continent? Per-
haps you were shipwrecked and helped by someone
ignorant of the dangers of Moray. Maybe you stole
a ship and sailed to Amn, hoping to escape your
violent home. Or you might have been left behind
on your first raid, stranded when your allies left or
were defeated.
Moonshae Isles Shifter
Regional Benefit
Add Athletics to your class skill list. You gain a +3
bonus to Athletics checks made to swim, and to any
skill or ability check related to piloting water vessels
or to moving around on a boat. Add Chondathan to
your list of known languages.
Born Under a Violent Moon
Rashemen
Rashemen is a land of stories. Village elders draw
children close to the fire, not with legends of faraway
lands or ancient heroes, but of dark threats that lurk
under the bridge just up the road or in the forests that
surround their homes. The elders are not wrong to do
so, for fey beings and monstrous things do lurk close
at hand, including shifters.
Your people live in secret in the Ashenwood
among legendary monsters like Dar-Guran, the troll
who can bite off a human’s head. Yet you also live
with more benign nature spirits that seem to exist
in every limpid pool and quiet copse of trees. Some
Rashemi see your race as the troll, while others view
you as the spirit. Your own people often seem unsure,
vacillating between savagery and primal harmony.
You left them to find your own way.
Rashemen Shifter Regional Benefit
You add Damaran to your list of languages known,
you add Nature to your class skills list, and you gain
a +2 bonus to Bluff, Diplomacy, and Insight checks
when dealing with fey.
Sembia
Many Sembians focus on maintaining appear-
ances. Others remain watchful for weakness or
signs of anti-Netherese or anti-Shar sympathies,
and Netheril keeps it own eyes upon the poppulace.
In a land bursting with façade and falsehood, the
nobles of Selgaunt have more reason to lie than
most—for before the Spellplague, Selgaunt’s blue
blood acquired a lycanthropic taint. Rumor lays the
fault at the feet of the ruling Uskevrens, but no noble
mentions that suspicion aloud. One need only touch
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Shifters and
the Gods
Shifters worship many different gods depend-
ing upon their inclinations and situation, but
certain deities have a special relationship with
their wild souls.
Selûne: Shifters who follow Selûne adhere
to her followers’ view of lycanthropy as a curse.
They see shifters’ bestial nature as directly tied
to the evil of lycanthropy and emphasize strict
emotional control and shifting only when nec-
essary. In some respects, shifters devoted to
Selûne are trying to deny part of their nature,
and they are often the most determined foes of
lycanthropes among her followers.
Silvanus: Silvanus emphasizes the acceptance
of savagery as part of the natural state of the
world, which resonates deeply with many shift-
ers. His teachings present a middle way between
Selûne’s emphasis on control of a shifter’s animal
instincts and Malar’s desire for unfettered feroc-
ity. Many shifters revere Silvanus, even those
that live in cities.
Malar: Shifters often have a heritage of
Malar-worship that extends well before the
Spellplague due to ancestral ties to lycan-
thropes. They often worship Malar because
their parents did, and see objections to Malar’s
evil as misunderstanding the essential nature
of savagery and its necessary role in the world,
and in shifters in particular. Many shifters see
Malar’s emphasis on unleashing the beast
within as a rallying cry, fighting the forces of
prejudice against their race.
finger to nose and talk of “hot blood” to indicate that
a noble son or daughter carries “the curse.”
Those “who can pass” are trained to suppress their
instincts and take on their roles as idle socialites or
merchant lords. Those who cannot meet varied fates.
Some are accepted by their families but kept hidden
from view. Others are cast out, fostered to those who
owe favors or bargained to those who collect them.
Which are you? Did you struggle to control your
emotions amid finery and strict rules of etiquette, or
did your foster parents put you to work as an agent
in their trade? Were you forced to leave Sembia after
your heritage was revealed, or were you sent on a
trade mission to distant lands to get you out view of
the Sembian public?
Sembia Shifter Regional Benefit
Add Bluff and Diplomacy to your class skill list. Add
Netherese to your list of known languages.
When not shifting, you resemble a human more
strongly than is normal for your race. This resem-
blance allows you to pass as human with a successful
Bluff check against a creature’s passive Insight, if you
are not shifting. If someone makes an active Insight
check against you, your Bluff check to disguise your
shifter nature suffers a –5 penalty.
Born Under a Violent Moon
Tethyr
The noble Janors of Zazesspur hide a terrible secret—
many of them can shed their skins. The family has
several wereserpent members, and keeps this shame-
ful knowledge hidden. None suspect that the sly, lithe,
and beautiful Janor house smiles with poison-tipped
fangs. Shifters that result from their unions with
humans and half-elves are therefore carefully hidden.
Without such precautions, many would move to
destroy the Janors, first and foremost the noble fam-
ily’s scaled and sibilant masters.
How do the qualities of your wereserpent heri-
tage show themselves in your shifter anatomy? How
were you hidden from public view? Perhaps you were
trained as an assassin for those who command your
family members with seductive whispers. Maybe
you were only allowed on the streets at night. Do you
know who controls your family’s fate? Do you want
to save your family from itself, or have you made
enemies of too many of them?
Tethyr Shifter Regional Benefit
Add Stealth to your class skill list. You gain a +2 bonus
to Stealth checks. Add Chondathan or Draconic to
your list of known languages.
About the Author
Matthew Sernett is a writer and game designer for Wizards
of the Coast who has worked on both Dungeons & Dragons®
and Magic: The Gathering ®. Recent credits include Monster
Vault, Neverwinter Campaign Guide, Hero Builder’s Handbook,
and Scars of Mirrodin for Magic: the Gathering. When he’s
not making monsters or building worlds, he’s watching bad
fantasy movies you don’t realize exist and shouldn’t bother to
learn about.
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 Arena of
Kalev Shadowfall was having a bad night.
It had started out well enough. Gaining entrance
to Duke Arisor’s palace had proven trivial. This was
peaceful, ordered Fairhaven, after all. The duke

   Shadows
trusted the queen’s law and the governor’s vigilance.
Kalev only needed to bribe one guard to leave one
gate in the outer wall open. After that, he had scaled
the palace’s ivy-covered wall so swiftly not even the
nesting sparrows stirred. The laughter and music
from the grand reception in the ballroom covered any
By Sarah Zettel stray sounds he made, and the hired patrol tromping
Illustration by Craig J. Spearing
through the gardens had completely failed to look
up to see the extra shadow moving across the stones.
Duke Arisor had become too cavalier about his own
safety of late. He was not the first of Fairhaven’s pros-
perous citizens to assume that because the city was
well-ordered it was essentially safe. It was but one of
his mistakes.
Another was selling information too sensitive to be
allowed out of the capitol.
A few drops of oil and a thin blade had popped
the next-to-useless lock on the study’s window. Velvet
draperies blocked off the sight of Kalev slipping down
from the sill.
Kalev remembered thinking it was too easy as he
stepped lightly down, not even rippling the drapes.
He remembered wishing for a little challenge to add
zest to the evening.
He also remembered thinking, Be careful what
you wish for.
Because when Kalev peered between the drapes
to make sure the study was empty, he saw a sprawl-
ing wreck of overturned furnishings and scattered
papers surrounding the mutilated remains of a man
dressed in emerald silk lying facedown in a large pool
of blood.

TM & © 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC. All rights reserved.

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Kalev swallowed his shock, and made himself
wait for a slow count of one hundred. No movement
disturbed the gory scene. Kalev crept out into the
darkened room and crouched beside the man to
ascertain that he was in fact as dead as he looked.
That didn’t take long. The back of the corpse’s scalp
was torn open, exposing the bloody skull beneath.
The neck and shoulders had been shredded, leaving
strips of flesh and silk dangling across the floor. The
man’s arms were broken. The smell of fresh slaughter
coated the inside of Kalev’s nostrils and left its sick,
sweet taint on the back of his throat.
Kalev reached out and prodded the stiffening
hands, checking the rings until he found the one he
was looking for: the sigil of peridot and onyx that
belonged to Duke Arisor.
Snickt.
Kalev spun to face the door, drawing his right-
hand dagger from his sash, and found himself
face-to-face with a dark-haired, bejeweled woman
wearing a formal gown of topaz silk.
Her startling violet eyes darted from Kalev to the
dead duke, the ransacked study, and to Kalev again.
The woman opened her mouth. Kalev crouched,
ready to spring across the corpse and muffle her
scream.
“Blast!” she exclaimed.
The woman shoved the door shut and strode into
the chaos, kicking up papers around her ankles.
Kalev, for one of the few times in his life, found him-
self startled past the ability to move.
The woman went straight to a massive bookshelf
that, like the unfortunate Duke Arisor, lay toppled
on its face. She dug her fingers underneath its edge
and strained.
“Help me!” she snapped.
Kalev blinked. “Aren’t you concerned I might be
the murderer?”
The woman rolled her eyes. “If you’d done that”—
she jerked her chin toward the duke’s gruesome
remains—“you be covered in blood. You’re not. If you
were one of that lot downstairs, I’d’ve noticed you.” She
looked Kalev pointedly up and down. His long black
coat, black breeches, black tunic, gloves, and boots
would indeed have stood out sharply in the ballroom.
“And you’d’ve summoned the guard. You haven’t. So,
you’re probably here to steal, which doesn’t bother me,
as long as we’re not after the same thing.”
“Admirably practical.” Kalev bowed his head. She
was wrong about his reasons for being there, but
there was no immediate need to point that out. Kalev
stowed his dagger, stepped lightly to the other side of
the shelf and crouched down.
“On three then,” he said. “One, two, three.”
A blur of midnight dropped down between them.
Kalev fell back, rolled over his shoulder and came
up on his feet, his dagger in his hand once more and
a flush on his face for failing to look up in time like
some lazy guard.
A stinking, humanish creature dressed in rags
sewn with bones landed beside the duke’s corpse.
One hand brandished a notched short sword, the
other clutched what looked like a golden statue of a
cyclops. It bellowed wordlessly, revealing a mouth full
of black teeth.
Skulk! Kalev leaped backward.
“Grab it!” shouted the woman.
“What!” cried Kalev, his voice embarrassingly
shrill.
The woman snatched up a broken chair to swing
at the skulk’s head. The skulk ducked, howled, and
raised its blade.
Arena of Shadows
Then, it jerked around and jumped head-first out
the window.
The woman dived after it, arms outstretched. She
missed by bare inches and sprawled full-length on
the floor, sending up a shower of papers.
A heartbeat later, shouts rose through the open
window. Kalev shoved the curtains open, and looked
down at the crowd of guards gathered below. Some
hared off into the darkness, presumably on the trail
of the skulk, which had already vanished. The rest
stayed put, probably waiting for orders.
“We need to clear that lot away, or we’re never get-
ting out of here.”
The woman understood at once. She scrambled to
her feet.
“Help!” she wailed at the top of her lungs. “Duke
Arisor is attacked! Oh, help!”
Attacked. Not murdered. The guard will come
check the study. Smart. Below, an officer barked
orders. Half the patrol headed for the walls, the other
half sprinted toward the main doors, leaving the
space under the windows clear.
The woman wasted no more time. She leaped
onto the sill. There came a loud ripping noise and
Kalev suddenly found a mass of topaz fabric f lying at
his head.
He knocked the bulky missile aside. When he
could see again, the window sill was empty.
The sound of running feet in the corridor was
very loud.
Kalev swung himself onto the sill, grabbed the ivy
and climbed down until he could safely let himself
drop to the ground. He landed in time to see a faint
flash of jewels in the lamp light as the woman scaled
the outer wall.
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Kalev set off at a run. He seldom lost his way, even
in the dark, and quickly found the side gate again.
It was still open. He was through and out into the
street in time to draw a look of startled fury from
the woman—now clad in breeches, boots, and a tight,
dark tunic—as she gazed down at him from the top of
the wall.
Before he could say anything, two massive hands
yanked him off his feet and slammed him against
the wall.
When his vision cleared, Kalev found himself
pinned against the wall an inch off the ground, star-
ing into the brutish face of a battered warforged.
Essentially a living suit of armor, the creature had one
massive fist cocked back and ready to punch Kalev’s
unprotected head.
“Sheroth!” The woman dropped lightly to the
cobbles. “The target’s this way!”
The warforged—Sheroth—growled, let Kalev drop
and lumbered after the woman. Kalev hit the cobbles,
staggering a moment before he found his footing.
He stared after the retreating pair. What was
going on?
The only way to answer that was to follow the
woman and the warforged. Choosing the thickest
shadows, Kalev ran.
Fairhaven was a city of wide avenues and tall
spires, famed for its beauty. Duke Arisor however,
controlled the majority of the spice trade on the
river and had built his main residence close to the
docks to keep an eye on his ships and his ware-
houses. Outside his palace, the district was low,
mean, and twisted. The alleys Kalev ran through
now had more in common with a dungeon than a
Fairhaven thoroughfare and all of his senses were
on high alert for footpads as well as for his quarry.
Fortunately, this particular warforged hadn’t been
created for stealth and Kalev, silent in his soft-soled
boots, had no trouble following Sheroth’s thudding
footfalls as the warforged stomped over cobbles and
packed dirt.
Abruptly, the lumbering footsteps ceased. Kalev
skidded to a halt at the corner of a sagging wood and
brick warehouse. Dagger ready, he eased himself
around the corner.
Someone whimpered. Kalev’s eyes darted left to
see a pile of tattered darkness shifting on the other
side of a darkened threshold. Kalev peered more
closely and saw a slender girl staring back at him,
tightly clutching a bundle of rags.
“Don’t go back there,” whispered the girl.
“Why?” Kalev stepped up to the threshold and
crouched down in front of the girl. “What’s back
there?”
The girl drew a huge breath.
“Idiot!” cried a familiar woman’s voice.
Kalev was snatched from behind and once more
tossed against the wall. This time his head connected
with the filthy bricks and stars exploded across his
vision. When his eyes cleared, he saw the woman
from the duke’s study barrel past him and collide
with the girl, knocking them both into the darkness
of the warehouse.
“Don’t!” cried the girl as she groped one-handed
backward, clutching her bundle more tightly.
Kalev found his feet. The warforged filled the
narrow alley juncture. Inside the warehouse, the
woman . . .
The woman blurred and changed. Now there were
two girls, one in rags, one practically swimming in
the tunic and trousers the woman had worn. The first
girl stared, eyes bugging out.
Arena of Shadows
Then, that ragamuffin also blurred, and also
changed, becoming an orc with heavy arms and a
wide, grinning mouth but still with the bundle of rags
clutched in one clawed hand.
The second girl shifted, and now the orc faced an
elf; slim and golden haired.
“Don’t just stand there,” rumbled Sheroth from
behind Kalev.
Kalev gaped at the warforged, who wore a broad-
sword on his back and a morningstar at his hip.
“What about you?”
“Too big.” Sheroth looked down at him with glow-
ing eyes. “Not too big to get you though.”
Kalev swallowed. It had not been his night.
Inside the warehouse, the two . . . beings . . . shifted
and shifted again, becoming human, monster, male,
female, beautiful, hideous by turns. Two things did
not change. The bundle of rags held by the one, and
the clothing of the other. Which gave Kalev his target,
which had now shrunk to become a bearded dwarf in
full armor.
Kalev gritted his teeth, hefted his dagger and
charged.
He hit the dwarf with his shoulder and they went
down together, rolling and grappling. Despite what
Kalev’s eyes told him, his hands felt no mail, or hair,
just muscled flesh. Nails raked his face.
WHAM!
The building shuddered around them as Sheroth—
a living battering ram—slammed against the doorway.
Praying the warforged didn’t bring the aging build-
ing down on top of them, Kalev stabbed down at
his opponent. The now-dwarf howled as the dagger
struck home and kicked straight into Kalev’s belly
with both feet. The wind left Kalev in a rush and he
catapulted backward. A second figure leaped over
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him, slim as a girl but with white skin and ivory hair
tinged with lavender. The being wore the woman’s
tunic, trousers, and jewels, and wrapped its bare
hands around the other shapechanger’s throat. The
shapechanger choked and growled, and reverted to a
bundle of dark sinewy limbs and snarling hatred.
Wheezing hard, Kalev forced himself back into his
fighting stance. The shapechangers spun round, grap-
pling. Sheroth pounded the narrow doorway, making
a deafening thunder over the fight. Kalev looked
frantically for an opening as they rolled on the floor,
snarling and screaming, and found none.
But he did spot the bundle of rags lying on the
ground.
Kalev snatched the bundle up. It was heavy, and
about the size of a loaf of bread. Gold gleamed under
the tattered sacking.
“Who wants it?” Kalev held the bundle high.
The shapechangers froze and Kalev found himself
facing two pairs of eyes, one murderous and dark, one
furious and shining amethyst.
“Mine,” croaked the skulk. “Mine or I kill it!”
Kalev had no time to make an answer. The other
combatant took advantage of the skulk’s inattention
and gouged at its eyes with hooked fingers. The skulk
bellowed and threw the other backward so hard she
flew through the air and hit a pile of empty barrels
with a cry.
“Vix!” Sheroth slammed its bulk once more against
the doorframe. The whole building groaned. Wood
and brick gave way with a splintering crash. Sheroth
rocketed into the low-beamed space.
The skulk howled and leaped and Kalev found
himself tumbling head over heels. He stabbed out, felt
his dagger catch, and be ripped from his hand, fol-
lowed by the bundle.
His arms were empty and the skulk was bound-
ing for the much-enlarged doorway. Sheroth planted
himself in its path, but it dived straight between the
warforged’s massive legs. Kalev tried to scramble
after it, but tumbled over one of the barrels dislodged
by Vix’s impact and turned another undignified sum-
mersault to slam up against Sheroth’s shins.
The skulk vanished into the night.
Sheroth shook his head and set Kalev on his feet.
Then he shuffled past, almost on his knees he had to
crouch so low.
“You all right, Vix?”
“Just about.” Vix sat with her head in her hands,
her wild white hair sticking out in all directions.
When she looked up, she caught Kalev staring at her.
“You’re a changeling,” he said.
“And you’re a fool.” Vix spat blood and dust and
wiped her pale mouth.
Kalev shrugged. “Possibly.” He reclaimed his
dagger and sheathed it. “But my name is Kalev.”
She glowered at him with her bright amethyst
eyes. Kalev knew some changelings didn’t think
of themselves in terms of human genders, but he
couldn’t make himself think of the pale being in front
of him as a “he” much less an “it.”
“Do you want to tell me what this is about?” Kalev
gestured around the warehouse.
Vix shifted her weight uneasily and glanced up at
Sheroth. Sheroth shook his heavy head.
“I’ve already saved your life,” Kalev pointed out.
“You at least owe me an explanation.”
Vix eyed Sheroth. This time Sheroth only
shrugged, the plates that formed its shoulders grating
together.
Vix slumped forward, resting her forearms on her
knees. “It’s not that complicated. A piece of property
Arena of Shadows
was stolen. It was traced to Duke Arisor. I was . . .
hired to get it back. Quietly.”
“Hired?” Kalev arched his brows.
“More or less.” The changeling rubbed a smear of
cobweb from her pale forehead.
“And would I be correct in assuming this piece of
property is more than just an ugly statuette?”
Vix studied her fingertips a moment before she
met Kalev’s gaze. “It’s called the Memory Eye and it’s
a magical artifact. Other than that, I don’t know and
I’m dead anyway so it doesn’t really matter.”
Kalev arched his brow. “Dead?”
“Metaphorically speaking. I hope.” Vix got to her
feet, using Sheroth’s arm to steady herself. “I can’t
believe I let it get away!” With surprising gentleness,
the warforged laid a hand on the changeling’s slim
shoulder.
“Do you even know what that was?” asked Kalev.
“It was a skulk. Foul thing.” Vix spat again. “Must
have been a mesmerist. That kind can cast an illusion
on its victims. A lot of people think they’re shapeshift-
ers, which just makes life more difficult for those of
us who truly are.”
Kalev nodded. A lot of people did not like nor trust
changelings, believing that their ability to change
form made them inherently devious.
“But skulks aren’t thieves,” said Kalev. “They’re
predators. Why would this one give up the chance for
a kill for this . . . what did you call it? Memory Eye?”
Arisor had been involved in some shady dealings, but
according to Kalev’s information, he’d never dealt in
magical artifacts.
Vix cocked her head toward him. “You know a lot
for a sneak thief.”
“So do you,” countered Kalev.
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“You never did say what you were doing in the
duke’s study.”
“You said you didn’t care.”
Vix waved a hand, acknowledging the point. “Well,
thanks for the rescue. Time we were going, Sheroth.”
You’re not getting away that easily, he thought.
“We could help each other,” said Kalev with a feigned
casualness. “You want to find the Memory Eye. I want
to find out why it was stolen by a skulk, and what
Duke Arisor was doing with it in the first place.”
“Why?”
“I’m insatiably curious.”
Vix watched him carefully for a long moment.
“Why should I work with someone who’s lying to me?”
“I’m not. I’m just keeping my own secrets. There’s
a difference. I’d think a changeling could understand
that,” he added.
Vix glanced up at Sheroth again. Kalev found
himself wondering how long the two had travelled
together.
“All right,” said Vix. “But I can’t start yet. Meet me
at the Arena of Unparalleled Wonder at dawn. I’ll be
coming off shift then.”
Kalev straightened up. “You work at the Arena? I
didn’t know House Phiarlan hired changelings.”
“Neither do they.” Vix’s form blurred and Kalev
again faced the graceful, dark-haired woman.
“We’ll see you at dawn.” Vix picked her way
through the ruined doorway and into the alley.
Sheroth gave Kalev a hard glower before shambling
after the changeling.
Kalev waited until the pair had vanished and
nothing remained but the sound of the warforged’s
heavy feet. Then, using all the skill he had at moving
undetected, Kalev followed.
* * *
The Arena of Unparalleled Wonder was House
Phiarlan’s greatest theater and even by Fairhaven
standards, an incredible sight. From the alley mouth
Kalev stared at the sparkling edifice. It took up an
entire city block and its mass of glittering domes and
crystal spires towered over its neighbors. There was
always at least one performance going on one of the
dozen public stages or the six or eight private per-
formance spaces. The finest actors and entertainers
fought for a chance to play there. And why wouldn’t
they? Queen Aurala herself attended the shows at
least monthly.
Kalev was not seeing the Arena from its best angle.
He was watching one of the many side doors where
Vix and Sheroth stood talking. He itched to know
what they said, but dared not get closer. At last, Vix
touched the warforged’s arm in farewell, and went
inside. Sheroth took a post beside the door.
The streets around were busy, as the cream of
Fairhaven’s society enjoyed a night’s carousing. The
place would have been a pick-pocket’s paradise if
it wasn’t for the sharp-eyed members of the public
guard standing by on the street corners. Queen
Aurala felt that if petty crime ran rampant through
her capital it would reflect badly on her work toward
a peaceful, stable realm, and in this at least, her
brother the governor shared her opinions.
Kalev considered his situation. He now had more
than one mystery on his hands.
Despite Vix’s assumptions, he was not a thief. He
had been given the task of finding the skulk that
was slaughtering the city aristocracy. Normally, such
beasts were relatively easy to track, once you knew
what you were looking for, but this one had not been
Arena of Shadows
exhibiting normal skulk behavior. Skulks were clever,
but not subtle. They worked with none but their own
kind, and they were cold killers, interested only in
maximizing carnage. But after the third death, it had
become clear the targets were not being chosen at
random. Each one of the dead had recently provided
the queen’s intelligence services with information.
Kalev had been in Arisor’s study to search for signs
the aristocratic smuggler might have gone into the
information trade. Instead, he’d landed in this busi-
ness with Vix and the Memory Eye . . . Kalev fingered
the medallion he wore beneath his shirt. What’s
more, actually finding a skulk was a surprise. He’d
expected to find a human trying to make the deaths
look like a skulk’s work.
My night for being wrong, he thought. But what
did a skulk want with a magical artifact? And could
it be coincidence that Vix and he both came to Duke
Arisor’s study at the same moment? Even if she was
only a hired thief, whoever hired her might have
more on their mind than retrieving their property.
Kalev needed answers, and he did not have time
to search the whole Arena for them, never mind the
whole city. He made his decision and pulled out his
medallion.
The day Kalev joined the Royal Eyes—the secret
intelligence service belonging to QueenAurala—he
had been given this badge. The day he had been set
on the trail of the skulk, the medallion had been
given a spell. It would work only once, Keue Fourth-
master, the Eyes’ quartermaster, told him. So he
was not to waste it, or lose it. But for that one time, it
would allow Kalev to see what he was looking for, no
matter how many barriers stood between him and
the target.
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The problem was, if Kalev used it at too great a dis-
tance, he would not be able to exactly determine the
location of what he sought, and then the spell would
be used up. The further problem was there might yet
come a better chance, a greater need to see some-
thing. Kalev weighed the medallion in his hand and
the decision in his mind.
Then, as he had been directed, he placed the gold
disk against his left eye and murmured the words to
activate the embedded spell.
The medallion grew warm against his skin.
“Who has the Memory Eye?” he whispered. “I
need to see who has the Memory Eye.”
Instantly, the world around him faded. The effect
was dizzying. People became ghosts, and buildings
thin mist. Only one thing remained solid; a black
stain slipping down one of the Arena’s great gilded
domes. It clutched a bundle to its chest that, to Kalev’s
spell-enhanced gaze, glowed like a beacon. The
skulk shambled across the roof, lifted a trapdoor and
jumped through.
And all the world was solid again and Kalev was
staring with one eye covered at the Arena.
The skulk was in there, somewhere. The skulk,
and Vix, who had spun him a story of blackmail and
simple thievery. Kalev felt his jaw harden and he nar-
rowed his eyes at Sheroth, standing straight and still
in front of the stage door with its massive arms folded.
Time was slipping rapidly away.
The direct approach then.
Kalev took a deep breath and pelted across the
street, dodging horses, carriages, and pedestrians
alike. Sheroth looked up, and his jaw dropped.
Kalev didn’t give him any time for questions.
“Sheroth! The skulk’s in the Arena!”
Warforged were fine tacticians and decent strate-
gists, but Kalev had yet to meet one who could lie
worth a damn. So Kalev was certain the surprise that
stiffened Sheroth’s stance was genuine. As were his
next words.
“I have to warn Vix.”
“It went in through a trapdoor in the roof, to the
southwest of the smaller gilded dome,” said Kalev
quickly. “Is there any way you can check that out qui-
etly while I let Vix know what’s happened?”
“If it gets down into the bowels of the Arena we’ll
never find it,” Sheroth muttered and Kalev held his
breath until the warforged met his gaze. “Vix’ll be in
her dressing room. Second stairs on your left going in,
two flights up, first right, third door on the left-hand
side, got that?”
Kalev nodded and Sheroth went on. “Tell Vix I’ll
meet you at door twelve. Door twelve. Got that?”
“Door twelve.”
Sheroth opened the door. “Quick.”
Kalev nipped inside the Arena of Unparalleled
Wonder, and into another world.
Kalev had attended Arena performances many
times. He was familiar with the gilt and glitter of
the front of the house, every aspect of it designed to
amaze. This was nothing like that.
It was a world of timber, painted canvas, and
shadows. All manner of effigies hung from fine
black lines, looking disconcertingly like they were
f loating in midair. Ropes as thick as his wrist con-
nected systems of huge pulleys. A steam elemental
sat in a brass housing at the center of a complex con-
glomeration of wooden cogs and metal gears that
drove shafts reaching up into the ceiling and down
into the f loor.
Arena of Shadows
Actors and dancers in glittering costumes darted
like butterflies between the stagehands in dark tunics
and breeches. Burly men hefted boulders and pil-
lars on their shoulders. The floor vibrated from the
motion of feet and carts and machines. Humans and
half-elves trudged back and forth, burdened by boxes
or great piles of cloth, or hauled on ropes, or signaled
up to the catwalks to the ones handling the massive
glowing crystals that lit the stages.
Those catwalks made a network overhead that
stretched farther out and higher up than Kalev could
see. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he caught
glimpses of stairways traveling down as well as up,
and arched doorways leading to darkened corridors.
You could hide an army in here, Kalev thought.
Kalev was also very aware that despite stand-
ing in shadow, as the only one here without any
clear purpose he stuck out like a sore thumb. It was
only a matter of moments before someone noticed
him. He shifted his demeanor so he projected con-
fidence and strode to the second stair on the left
leading upward. As long as he didn’t do something
clod-brained like get in someone’s way, he would
probably be ignored.
He hoped.
The third door after the first right had the name
Vixana Fairlight scrawled on it in chalk, a sign of
how quickly things turned over in the Arena. Kalev
knocked, but did not wait for an answer before he
walked in.
Vix, in her guise as a dark-haired human woman,
started to her feet.
“Get out of here!” she cried. “I don’t need more
trouble!”
“Neither do I, but . . .”
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Footsteps sounded outside. Vix swore and shoved
Kalev backward behind a folding screen draped with
layers of dresses and cloaks. “Keep quiet!” she hissed.
The space smelled of old perfumes and powders.
Kalev stepped back from the screen to keep his
silhouette from showing, and breathed shallowly.
He heard a faint swish as the door opened on well-
oiled hinges.
“There you are, Vixana,” said a rough male voice.
“What’s the news?”
“Nemar.” Vix sounded anything but glad. “It’s
good. I’ve almost tracked down the . . . it.”
So, this Nemar was Vix’s “employer.” “Almost
tracked it down!” Nemar exploded, then he seemed to
remember he didn’t want to be overheard. “I told you
where it was!” he hissed.
“Unfortunately, Duke Arisor got himself murdered
by a skulk,” replied Vix evenly, but her voice was taut
as a harp string. “Which stole your precious item.”
“A skulk stole something?”
“Yes,” replied Vix coldly. “Strange, don’t you think?
A creature that has no place in Fairhaven shows up
and kills the duke shortly before I got to his study.”
“None of your lip, thief.” Nemar’s voice turned
truly ugly. “You swore you’d have it for me tonight!”
“I’ll get it.”
“You’d better.” Heavy footsteps crossed the floor,
cloth swished and wood creaked. Kalev tensed. He
didn’t want to show himself but he wouldn’t stand by
and let Vix be hurt. “You’ve got one too many secrets
to fail, you and that warforged lummox.”
“Leave Sheroth out of this!”
“I’ll say what I like, Vix,” sneered Nemar. “You just
be sure you finish your job.”
The door opened and shut and footsteps walked
away.
Kalev emerged from behind the screen. Vix said
nothing, she just sat down at the table of cosmetics
and slowly began opening boxes and jars.
“Who is Nemar?”
Vix dipped her fingers into a paint pot and spread
bright red cream across her lips. “He’s the manager
for stage eight. My employer.”
“And your blackmailer, if I don’t miss my guess.
How’d he find out you were a changeling?”
“I took a fall one night,” she murmured, watching
her reflection. What’s it like to stare into your own
false face? Kalev wondered. “Almost broke my leg.
The pain was bad. It’s harder to hold a shape when
you’re hurting. He . . . caught me changing.”
“And are you a thief?”
“I used to be.” She wiped her fingertips on a
towel. “No one hires changelings, so I fell in with
a pack of adventurers. But I like living more than
I like gold, so I came to Fairhaven to try to make a
new start.”
Kalev thought about the ugly snarl in Nemar’s
voice, and how he was the one who sent Vix after the
Memory Eye. If a changeling thief was caught in a
room with a corpse, how much further would the city
guard look to find the murderer? “And Sheroth?”
“If you want to know his business, you can ask
him,” she snapped.
“I see.”
“Do you?” She glowered at him in the mirror.
Kalev made no answer, he just met her gaze.
Vix blinked first. “I’ve got a performance.” She got
up and made to brush past him.
“You’ve got more than that,” he said. “The skulk’s
in the theater somewhere.”
“What!”
Arena of Shadows
“It got in through one of the roof trapdoors. It’s in
here, and it’s got the Memory Eye with it.”
For a moment, Kalev saw the changeling’s pale
coloring through the human’s warmer flesh tones.
“What in the name of all the hells is going on?” she
demanded.
“That’s a very good question,” Kalev agreed. “Do
you know what Nemar’s connection to the Memory
Eye is? Or Duke Arisor?”
Vix shook her head. “I never asked.”
Then, thought Kalev, that’s what I need to find
out next.
Vix narrowed her eyes at him, as if she could read
his thoughts. “Are you planning on spying on him?”
“I’m afraid I must.”
He waited for her to protest, but she just sighed.
“Don’t get caught. I’ve got enough problems.”
“I’ll do my best. Sheroth’s also on the case. He said
to meet him by door twelve after your act. We can all
rendezvous there once you get off stage and plan our
next move.”
“You invite yourself along very easily.” Vix snorted.
“Why should we trust you?”
“Because you’re in trouble, and there’s no one else
to help you.”
Vix pressed her lips together in a hard line but
he could tell she realized he was right. “My set
lasts exactly fifteen minutes. I’ll meet you at door
twelve.” She grabbed a spangled cloak and marched
out the door.
Which left Kalev with one problem; how to find
this Nemar in the Arena’s labyrinthine backstage,
without being noticed and thrown out. He scanned
the dressing room, hoping for inspiration. He found it
on the broken writing desk that had been shoved into
one corner of the dressing room.
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Kalev buttoned his black coat all the way up to
his throat and pulled his breeches out of his boot
tops. He tucked his gloves into his pockets and
dipped his right index finger into the inkwell. He
plucked up a pen and ink pot and strode purpose-
fully to the door. Now, if anyone spared him a
glance, they would see nothing but a clerk, and who
ever gave a clerk a second thought? It was almost as
good as being invisible.
He emerged from the dressing room in time to
peer over the railing to the main floor and watch Vix
join a gaggle of sparkling costumed dancers all head-
ing in the same direction.
“Now that’s a beautiful sight.”
Kalev jumped. A man stood beside him, a half-elf
by the look of him. He’d moved into place so silently
and easily, that for all his skills Kalev hadn’t even
noticed him. Then, Kalev realized he recognized him.
The half-elf was Gledeth Shore, the lead actor of
the Arena. Kalev had seen him in his new drama less
than a month ago, before the murders started. He had
the fine-boned structure of a Valenar war prince com-
bined with the lively energy of a charming human
male. On stage, it was a lethal combination.
Kalev remembered his character of fussy clerk
and sniffed.
Gledeth laughed and slapped his shoulder. Kalev
flinched as if the blow was too hard, which only made
Gledeth laugh harder. “Just don’t get caught star-
ing too long,” he said, his eyes suddenly serious. “Or
you might wind up in trouble.” Then chuckling once
more, he strolled off.
Kalev watched him go, thoroughly disquieted.
What did the most famous actor in all of Fairhaven
care what a clerk did or did not stare at?
Kalev wavered and cursed silently. He hunched
his shoulders and shook his head so his hair flopped
down across his brow, and started down the stairs.
If Nemar was the stage manager, he would be in the
wings, ready to line up the members of the dance
troupe and give them their cue. Kalev would know
the man as soon as he spoke and then . . .
“You!” shouted a furious voice. Kalev froze on the
last step. A woman clad in a long black coat and car-
rying a huge ledger under her arm shouldered her
way through the bustling stagehands. “Where do you
think you’re going!”
It was then Kalev realized his disguise had a fatal
flaw. No one spared a clerk a second thought, except,
of course, another clerk.
* * *
Ten minutes, three flights of stairs, and half-a-dozen
corridors later, Kalev found himself in the office of
Mirias Jadering Phiarlan, a surprisingly stocky elf
who wore his golden hair in a single braid that hung
between his shoulder blades and displayed the great,
green earring that had given him his name. Kalev
knew Mirias only by reputation, but that reputation
was extensive. Mirias could make Kalev disappear so
thoroughly not even the Eyes would be able to find
his corpse.
Kalev sat beside the hearth in his office. Mirias’s
gaze bored straight into the back of his mind.
“So, tell me,” Mirias said. “What brings you back-
stage at my Arena without ticket or invitation?”
Kalev crossed his legs, feigning relaxation. “There
have been a rash of murders among the city’s mer-
chant aristocracy. I’m sure you heard.”
Mirias nodded once.
Arena of Shadows
“I am investigating these crimes. I have reason
to believe they are connected to the Arena, and
to the theft of a magical artifact known as the
Memory Eye.”
Mirias’s green eyes narrowed.
“It was stolen from the study of Duke Arisor,”
Kalev continued, “who was murdered tonight, and
now I find one of your stage managers is astonish-
ingly eager to get his hands on it.”
“Why is this any of your business?”
“As I said, I’ve been hired to find out the cause of
the deaths.”
“Hired by whom?”
Kalev smiled pleasantly and made no answer.
Mirias f lexed his long fingers. “Nemar has bad
luck at the gaming tables,” he said at last. “He tends
to . . . acquire objects of value and sell them. Good
stage managers are difficult to find, so we have been
tolerated it.”
“And now?” Kalev inquired.
“We may have to rethink this policy.”
“In that case, I have proposition,” said Kalev. “Let
me continue my investigations. If Nemar is behind
the murders, I will make the problem go away, with-
out anyone asking a single question, or casting any
aspersions on House Phiarlan.”
Mirias considered this. “I will give you one day.
After that, I will take matters into my own hands.”
Kalev inclined his head. “One last question. What
is the Memory Eye?”
“The Memory Eye projects a copy of the last thing
it’s seen. For example, if it was on the main stage
now, it would see Lady Daria Goldeneye in one of her
most popular scenes. If its recall were activated, it
would project that same scene so perfectly you would
not be able to tell it from the original.” He paused,
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attempting to gauge Kalev’s reaction to this. “As such,
it is very useful, particularly if a popular artist has
fallen ill, or succumbed to a fit of temperament. The
performance can go on and no one in the audience is
any the wiser.”
Or demanding their entry fee refunded. “I can see
where such an artifact would have . . . many uses,”
Kalev said. It could allow a person, say a stage man-
ager, to be in two places at once. As he thought this,
another face flashed in front of his mind’s eye and
Kalev found himself wondering if Nemar was work-
ing alone. The stage manager was already employed
by House Phiarlan in one capacity, why not another?
It was possible the story of Nemar’s gambling debts
was just that, a story. Mirias could very well be hold-
ing Nemar’s leash, and the skulk’s.
If House Phiarlan was engaged in a campaign
against the Queen’s intelligence sources . . .
Kalev got to his feet. “Thank you for your time. I
will not forget this.”
“Neither will I,” said Mirias softly, as they shook
hands.
* * *
“Where have you been?” Vix demanded. After his
meeting with Mirias, it had taken Kalev almost
another half hour to track down the street exit with
the big white twelve painted on its black surface.
“Finding out about the Memory Eye, and about
your blackmailing boss.” And possibly getting led
down a garden path. He looked around the alley
where they stood. “Where’s Sheroth?”
“I don’t know.” Vix wrapped her arms around
herself.
Worry prickled Kalev too. Despite his brief
acquaintance with them both, he knew Sheroth
would never leave Vix waiting.
Kalev was beginning to see that whoever was
behind this had spun an incredible web. The Memory
Eye would allow them to be in two places at once,
so they could work the social networks of the city
and identify key information agents, but always with
an alibi. Then, they could send in the skulk, who
could hide in plain sight, to take out any agent who
was getting too close to something important, or
who might be about to change sides. Everyone knew
skulks killed at random, so no one would ask why one
person or another had been murdered.
But how was the skulk being controlled? Skulks
worked for no one, obeyed no one, cared for nothing
but death.
“We have to find the skulk,” he said briskly.
Vix was not going to be so easily distracted. “Not
until I know what’s happened to Sheroth.”
Kalev faced her. “Vix, if the skulk got a look at your
true shape, it could have used it to lure Sheroth away
from here.”
Vix’s eyes flashed amethyst. Then, she turned and
started swiftly down the alley with Kalev following
right behind.
They rounded the corner of the Arena, to a space
filled with theatrical wagons painted with bright
murals advertising acts and actors. Vix threw open
a metal trapdoor set into the cobbles. Without hesi-
tation, she climbed down a series of iron staples
bolted to the wall. Kalev did the same. When he
finally reached the f loor, Kalev heard Vix speak
a word he did not recognize. White light f lared
around her.
Arena of Shadows
Kalev raised an eyebrow. Vix held up the glowing
crystal for him to see. “We’re all issued one. It’s not
safe to have flames burning unattended in here.”
The room around them proved to be a storage
space for fabric. It was lined with shelves stuffed
with bolts of cloth in all textures and colors. Vix
unlocked the door and let them out into a hallway
lined with doors.
“What are these?” Kalev asked as they walked into
the corridor.
“Store rooms, mostly,” replied Vix. “Doors to other
stairs, to the work rooms, pump rooms, light rooms.”
“How big is this place?”
“No one knows. There are rumors about whole
families having lived down in these tunnels for gener-
ations.” She ducked into another store room, surveyed
the shelves and reached one handed between two
bales of fabric. To Kalev’s surprise, she pulled out a
spear made of a piece of black glass tightly lashed to a
wooden shaft. She handed it to him and then brought
out its twin.
“These rumors . . . ,” he began, but she looked at
him in a way that said quite eloquently she would
answer no question that followed those words. Clutch-
ing his new weapon, Kalev turned away, but froze.
A trail of footsteps showed up plainly in the grime.
“Well, someone’s been this way recently.”
Vix held the crystal high and swore. “Sheroth.”
“Are you sure?”
Vix pointed to the print of a huge, flat foot. “What
else has a print like that?”
Kalev said nothing, just gestured with his spear,
indicating that she should lead the way.
Following the faint trail in the dust, they traversed
a series of ancient storerooms filled with the dusty
detritus of the theater: pots and jars and crates,
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stacks of wood, coils of rope, folds of canvas. They
passed through rooms filled with props, looking like
the contents of whole homes had been stacked in
corners and piled on shelves. The doors had been
placed at strange angles, seldom directly across from
each other, so each exit was a quarter turn from the
entrance. The result was the uncomfortable sensation
of going in circles. Mildew permeated the stale air.
A constant rustling accompanied them, and Kalev
glimpsed the flash of red eyes as rats scuttled away
from the unexpected light. Rickety stairways, their
entrances half-hidden by piles of debris or crates led
them farther down. Kalev found himself quietly pray-
ing Vix’s crystal didn’t fail. Without the light, they’d
be permanently lost in this labyrinth.
To keep his mind off that highly uncomfortable
possibility, Kalev turned over the thousand ques-
tions that thronged in his mind. What had convinced
Sheroth to come down here? Had he truly followed
a skulk in Vix’s shape? But who controlled the skulk?
How? It would have to be a powerful spell, or . . .
Kalev remembered the sight of Vix fighting the
skulk, shapechanger facing shapechanger. Could a
skulk mesmerist itself be under the spell of another
kind of mesmerist? Someone who could not or
would not do their own murder. Someone who had
a quick mind, and the glib tongue to cover any small
inconsistencies.
Someone who had a predictable routine and
could hide in plain sight, if they had the help of the
Memory Eye . . .
They came to a stair that was stone rather than
wood. There was no more trail, but there was also
no other exit from the room, so they headed down.
It ended in a small space with walls of rough stone.
Sewer stench permeated the draft that curled around
Kalev’s neck. Icy water leaked through the mortared
joints and puddled on the ancient flagstones. For a
moment he thought they’d hit a dead end, but then,
he saw a low crawl-way near the floor.
Must go under the sewers, he thought.
Vix saw the crawl-way too, and she held the crystal
close to it, but the white light only penetrated a few
inches into the stinking dark. Kalev looked at the
changeling armed with her makeshift spear. “You’d
better head back. I’ll find Sheroth and bring him out
to you.”
“No,” she said flatly, as he expected her too.
“Sheroth has always stood by me. I’m not abandoning
him to whatever’s down there.”
For a moment Kalev considered telling her who
he was, and who he worked for. She was trustworthy.
She could take a message back to his control for him,
to let them know what had happened, just in case he
never came out of this hole.
But in the end all he did was nod once. “Then let’s
end this.”
To Kalev’s surprise she let him go first, handing over
the crystal without argument. Awkwardly, because
of the spear and the crystal, Kalev crawled into the
tunnel. It bent like a saddlebow and was coated with
a stinking slime Kalev did not care to speculate about.
His breath steamed in the crystal’s light.
Finally, every joint aching, Kalev emerged from
the tunnel into what he felt to be an open space. He
held the crystal up high.
They stood in a strange, irregular chamber. Its
filthy walls and ceiling curved sharply inward,
making Kalev think it might be a juncture of sewer
tunnels. Fetid heaps of dirt and refuse filled the
many corners.
In its center stood Sheroth.
Arena of Shadows
“Sheroth!” Vix cried as she emerged from the
crawl-way and darted forward. “What . . . ?”
“Get back, Vix!” bellowed Sheroth.
In the next heartbeat, the warforged drew his
broadsword and charged, straight for Kalev. Kalev
sprang to the side. Sheroth’s momentum carried him
past, but he pivoted faster than Kalev would have
credited, and charged again.
“Sheroth!” cried Vix. “Stop!”
“He’ll kill you!” Sheroth aimed a swing at Kalev’s
head. Kalev skipped back. He didn’t dare parry.
The spear’s shaft would snap like a stick against
Sheroth’s blade.
“No! He’s a friend!”
“He’s a liar!” roared Sheroth.
If Kalev were facing a human, he’d just keep him
on the run, using his speed to stay out of range and
wear the other down. But he would wear down long
before the warforged would.
Desperation giving him strength, Kalev hoisted
himself one-handed up the pile of debris.
“Coward!” bellowed Sheroth as he charged again.
“Sheroth!” Vix leaped into his path. “What’re you
doing!”
“He’s the murderer!” The warforged’s eyes glowed
with his outrage. “He killed the duke!”
“The skulk killed the duke!” Vix grabbed the war-
forged’s raised sword arm and hauled down with all
her strength. “Who told you this?”
Sheroth looked at her, momentarily paralyzed
with confusion.
“I did,” said a man’s smooth voice, and Kalev found
he was absolutely unsurprised to see Gledeth Shore
emerge from the shadows flanked by two skulks.
“What are you doing here?” Vix asked. Gledeth
smiled indulgently down at her.
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“He’s a psion,” said Kalev, not taking his eyes off
Sheroth. “He’s using his mind to control the skulks.
He made them steal for him. He’s convinced Sheroth
you’re in danger from me.”
“So I very much suggest you get out of his way,”
said Gledeth to Vix.
“Sheroth’s not going to hurt me,” replied Vix
calmly, looking up into the warforged’s dull eyes and
shifting, revealing her true form. “Sheroth will never
hurt me.”
Sheroth met Vix’s amethyst eyes, and his body
swayed.
Gledeth’s eyes narrowed. “Hmmm . . . you may
be right. Ah, well, Kalev, you’ll just have to set your
skulks on her.”
The skulks roared and lunged forward. Vix
screamed and stabbed out, catching one skulk in
the shoulder. The skulk howled and reeled, and
she pivoted on her heel to face the other sneering
murderer.
“Kill them!” Gledeth shouted.
Sheroth plowed into the unsteady pile of debris
Kalev perched on top of. Kalev leaped for the war-
forged’s armored shoulders, and bounced off, scarcely
jarring Sheroth at all. He hit the floor hard, barely
staying upright. Vix shouted again as both skulks
charged her. She sliced one on the arm with her
blade, sending it staggering backward, and with the
back stroke slammed the butt of her spear into the
other one’s guts.
“They’ll kill her!” Kalev bellowed to Sheroth.
“You’ve got to do something! They’ll kill Vix!”
Sheroth froze, just for an eye-blink. Kalev could
practically feel the wave of power pouring from the
psion, but it was not enough. It could not be enough
to break such loyalty. Sheroth roared and turned,
brandishing his blade in one massive hand. With
the other, he grabbed the nearest skulk and tossed
it aside.
Kalev faced Gledeth, spear poised. “Who are you
working for, Gledeth?”
“You expect me to name my masters to you?”
Kalev smiled patiently. “You’ve got to be about
at your breaking point. You can’t let the skulks go,
they’re just as likely to kill you as us. You can’t let
Sheroth go because he and Vix will take you down. If
I want, all I have to do is wait it out, and you die.”
The half-elf ’s eyes glittered. “Perhaps all I need do
is wait until my skulks kill your pathetic allies. Then
you are mine.”
“You think I won’t fight?”
“I think you don’t want to,” said the psion. “What
I know is too useful to you and to your little queen.
You need me to name my spy master. You know that
you do.”
He did. He wanted to bring Gledeth back alive,
to see him questioned, to find out what the half-
elf ’s plans were, why he had murdered, and who
he was working for or with. It could be a threat to
the whole of the realm and he, Kalev, could end it
all, be a hero to the queen. If he could just capture
Gledeth Shore alive.
Kalev swayed on his feet. “I . . . need . . . you.”
Just then, Sheroth bellowed and stomped down on
one of the skulks. There was a sickening crunch and
squish as the creature’s skull splintered beneath the
warforged’s foot.
Gledeth grinned and turned his shining eyes onto
Kalev, in time to see Kalev’s dagger flying toward
him, but not fast enough to dodge before the blade
embedded itself in his throat.
“But I want you dead more,” said Kalev.
Arena of Shadows
Gledeth gurgled and fell as a welter of blood
spilled down the front of his silken tunic. Kalev
turned in time to see Sheroth grab the remaining
skulk and hold it so Vix could run her spear straight
into its wide-open mouth, slitting flesh and crashing
through bone. The skulk gagged and gurgled and
sagged, spouting blood, and Sheroth flung the crea-
ture away.
Vix and Sheroth faced each other, panting,
shaking, their friendship unbroken, the slow under-
standing of true circumstances that comes after a
battle washing over them. Kalev retrieved his dagger
and wiped the blood and gore on Gledeth’s sleeve
before he tucked it back into his sash.
“Come on,” he said to his comrades. “Let’s get out
of here.”
About the Author
Sarah Zettel is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy
author. She has written nineteen novels and a roughly equal
number of short stories over the past ten years in addition to
founding the author cooperative Book View Cafe, practicing
tai chi, learning to fiddle, marrying a rocket scientist and
raising a rapidly growing son. She is very tired right now.
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by Bill Slavicsek
What D&D Means to Me
The holiday season is upon us. No matter which
metaphorical holiday pie you dip your fork into, this
is the time of year when you probably get sentimental,
reflective, and at least a little bit jolly. That’s certainly
the case with me. At a time when gift-giving and
gift-receiving is on everyone’s mind, I wanted to take
some time to thank the Dungeons & Dragons®
brand for what it has given to me over the years—and
what it keeps on giving in ways that constantly sur-
prise and delight me.
Friends, Old and New
D&D has given me the gift of friendship. From the
moment I discovered the D&D game back in my
teenage years, friendship has been integrally tied to
the concept. Roleplaying is, after all, a social activity,
and the D&D game helped strengthen and deepen
the friendships I shared with those that came into
and out of the game. Nothing fosters togetherness like
plunging into the Tomb of Horrors or surviving the
journey through the Vault of the Drow. Along the way,
we learned about courage, we tested our resolve, we
saw existing friendships grow stronger, we made new
friends—and we had fun. A whole lot of fun.
TM & © 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC. All rights reserved.
Ampersand
That was then, and it’s no different today. I still
get together with friends every week to gab, gossip,
eat good food, and play D&D. It continues to be
one of the highlights of my week, one of the shining
moments that I look forward to and enjoy reminiscing
about well after the session ends.
For all the friends that have played D&D with me
over the years, and for all those that continue to play,
thanks D&D!
Something to Do
D&D has given me endless hours of entertainment.
The amount of fun generated by the D&D RPG has
never ceased to amaze me. For the price of a night
out or the cost of a video game, a single D&D product
offers countless hours of entertainment. From simply
perusing books and supplements over and over to dig
out the nuggets of ideas, to actually using them in a
game, most D&D products provide way more hours
of enjoyment than other similarly priced entertain-
ment options. With the D&D rulebooks, dice, and a
module, my friends and I are never far from filling a
night or a weekend with excitement, adventure, and
fun. A whole lot of fun.
ampersand
For all the time you filled with magic and endless
adventure, and for all the adventures still to come,
thanks D&D!
All in the Mind
D&D has given me the gift of mental stimulation. The
D&D RPG has sparked my imagination and creativity
from the moment I discovered it, filling my head with
all kinds of amazing thoughts and dreams. It has given
me a place to go when daydreams are called for. It has
made me use math and reading skills because I wanted
to, not because a school curriculum or work assignment
forced me to. It has given me mental movies way more
powerful and exciting and personal than anything I’ve
ever seen on the big screen, because I had a hand in
creating them. It has given me the power to pretend,
to be someone else for a time, to experience amazing
adventures without actually risking life and limb.
For igniting my imagination in all kinds of ways,
thanks D&D!
What does the D&D brand mean to you? Visit the
D&D discussion forums to share your thoughts with
us and with the D&D community.
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Hungry in Han-Over?
Not quite, but the new D&D Gamma World RPG
expansion, Famine in Far-Go, goes on sale this month.
If you haven’t checked out the wacky game of posta-
pocalyptic peril and mutant madness, now’s the
best time to jump in! The expansion adds new hero
options, supplements the rules, provides new mon-
sters, and includes a full-length adventure.
Also available this month is Dungeon Tiles Master
Set: The Wilderness, a box full of tiles that allow you
to create encounter areas that take place in the great
outdoors. The map for “The Whispering Glade” in
this month’s issue of Dungeon magazine uses only
tiles from this set and Dungeon Tiles Master Set: The
Dungeon. Check it for an example of what you can
build from these tiles.
If you’re looking for a good read, check the new
Dungeons & Dragons novel, The Seal of Karga Kul by
Alex Irvine. An ancient city, an ancient war, a human,
and a dragonborn paladin combine to unveil a centu-
ries-old struggle between madness and civilization.
D&D Insiders
If you’re already a D&D Insider, then you’ve been
enjoying the new web-based D&D Character Builder.
If you’re not, watch this video to see what all the fuss
is about.
ampersand
D&D Comics
I’ve talked about these before, but the new D&D
comics from IDW have me really excited. Check out
the IDW website for the latest news and information.
And look at all the great things people are saying
about the new comics (it’s not just me) at these sites:
F majorspoilers.com
F comicbookresources.com
F comicsbulletin.com
F comicbookresources.com again
F kittyspryde.com
Happy Holidays!
As I draw this column and the year in general to a
close, remember to give the gift of D&D this holiday
season. Sure, you could check out our D&D Holiday
Gift Guide for inspiration, but there are other ways
to share and spread the D&D spirit. Host a game for
your game group. Invite a new player or two to your
game. Volunteer to run a session of D&D Encounters at
your local game shop. And if the RPG is a little more
than your group wants to handle right now, host a
night of board game fun with the D&D Castle Raven-
loft board game. It’s spooky and exciting and provides
a great D&D experience in about an hour of play.
From all of us here at Wizards of the Coast and the
D&D R&D Team, happy holidays! We’ll talk again in
the new year.
Keep playing!
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77
 C o nfessi o ns o f a F u l l - time wizard
Arcana Lang Syne
The end of another year is upon us. I know this not
because the calendar tells me so. It’s because my
magazine subscriptions are yelling at me to clean
this! Cleanse that! Change everything!
Hey Shape, I already work out six days a week. And
yeah, Lucky, I’d love to revamp my entire wardrobe
to include the 379 “key pieces every woman should
own.” Sorry Elle Décor—I don’t have a crawl space that
I can make over into a reading room. I don’t even
have room to read. Look, magazines, I don’t pay you to
make me feel bad! My cat does that for free.
New Year’s resolutions are cruel. I mean, sure, I
probably do eat more sugar than the FDA thinks is
appropriate. And yeah, a closet clean-out might help
the whole “no room” thing. But I think I do OK. If it
ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?
“Do you have a New Year’s resolution?” I asked
Chuck and Chris, my cube neighbors.
“Nah,” Chris said. “Those things are designed to
make you feel bad about how well you’re taking care
of yourself. If I want to resolve to do something better,
why wait until January 1st to do it?”
I nodded in agreement.
TM & © 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC. All rights reserved.
By S h el ly M a z z a nobl e
illustration by William O’Conner
“I have a New Year’s resolution,” Chuck said.
“Headphones. I’m going to get a really good pair and
wear them whenever I’m at my desk.”
“But then you won’t hear my Glee recaps and cat
stories!”
Oh.
I don’t resolve to do anything other than wake up
and remember to feed Zelda. Chris is right. If some-
thing needs changing, why wait until some magazine
tells you to?
On the other hand, I do like change. But not when
it comes to D&D.
There are a few things I’ve noticed about myself
since starting our lunchtime D&D Encounters game:
F I almost always choose a pre-gen character
F I almost always choose the spell-caster
F I hate eating my lunch in front of people
Why, you ask? I don’t know. I guess I’m afraid
I’ll have to share my food, and then I might end up
hungry. I hate feeling anything but comfortably sated,
(which is also why I dress in layers and always bring a
backup pair of shoes when breaking in a new pair.)
Oh, wait, you mean why do I always play a wizard?
I guess familiarity doesn’t just breed contempt, it also
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breeds content. Do I really like playing a wizard or a
sorcerer, or is it just what I know?
In Season One of Encounters, I came to the table
late only to discover the role of spellcaster had gone to
someone else.
“Do you want to be the spellcaster?” Hilary asked.
“It’s okay. I’ll play whatever.”
Hilary is very sweet and apparently psychic,
because I hardly think my foot stomping and chorus
of Boooooooooooooooooo was that noticeable. But I
resisted, believing it’s important to step out of your
comfort zone once in a while.
“You mean your competency zone,” said Chuck.
“No, I mean comfort. I’m sure a psionic tiefling will
be just as much fun as a wizard.”
Enter Herteus “Bring on the Hert” Maximus. He
… well … didn’t quite live up to his name. At least
not when it came to his enemies. He “hert” himself
plenty—falling down a flight of spiral stairs, dropping
a dagger on his foot. Low self-esteem. Psions of all
races really need to watch that negative self-talk.
And then there was my short-lived affair with a
human sorcerer in Season Two. Sure, I was happy
to go back to my spell-casting glory days with
Beercan (even if he was a dumb, old human), but
that joy was tempered early on by the mere fact we
were playing in Dark Sun and WE NEARLY DIED
EVERY SESSION. Even Jack Bauer would have suf-
fered in that game.
When we got the game kits for Season Three, I
pulled out the pre-gens in search of the spellcaster.
“Ah, an eladrin wizard!” I said. “I shall love you
and keep you and call you Berry White.”
“It’s Berrian,” Chuck said. “I named him. I should
know.”
C o nfessi o ns o f a F u l l - time wizard
“Trust me. It’s Berry White,” I said, explaining
once again that in addition to my role as Player-in-
Chief, Zelda’s lackey, and most recently “sado maso
cookiest” due to my unloading thirty-seven tons of
holiday cookies on R&D, I am also the Pre-Generated
Character Whisperer.
“I’m like that guy, John Edward, who allows
dead people to communicate with their loved ones
through him. Sara: someone whose name begins with a
D, always smelled like ham and used to favor plaid shirts
wants you to check behind the refrigerator. Does this make
sense? I know what the pre-gens want. They speak
through me.”
“But, they’re not dead,” Chuck responded.
“Yet,” Chris called over the cube wall. Did I men-
tion he’s also our DM?
“They’re not even alive,” Chuck continued. “Wait.
You’re confusing me.”
“Oh, and Berry White is female,” I said. “Shows
what you know.”
It was right around then that Chris threw down
the gauntlet. It landed with a thud on my desk.
“Heroes of the Fallen Lands,” I noted. “I already have
a copy.”
“I know, but if you really want a female wizard
named Berry White, then it’s time for you to make
one,” he said. “Before our first encounter.”
Ha! That’s crazy talk!
“You mean, like with this book? And a pencil?
Right! I actually want to play this season, so I think
I’ll just stick to the gender-confused wizard Chuck
misnamed.”
Chris smiled at me. Oooh, I know that smile. It’s the
same one he flashes in our games when we say things
like “Heck yeah, we want to open that sarcophagus.”
“Have you become so reliant on the Character
Builder that you forgot how to roll up a character the
old-fashioned way?”
“That’s nuts,” I said in my defense. “Everyone
knows I rely on Marty to roll up my characters.”
And I didn’t forget. It’s quite possible I never knew.
The last character I rolled up the “old fashioned way”
was Astrid, my 3.5 elf sorceress, and really my old
DM did most of the work.
Chris turned away muttering, “I’m just saying …”
Which of course translates to “Why not just play
a thirty-something female Associate Brand Manager,
you big chicken?”
Then I remembered what else he said—if some-
thing needs resolving, why wait? Could my D&D game
benefit if I resolved to leave my comfort zone? This
isn’t about window coverings and switching to soy
milk. It’s about D&D! But fine. I’d do it. I’d show
Chris and all the other doubters (me) that I could
put a little graphite and eraser shavings into char-
acter creation. I would turn over a new leaf. And
twenty-one days early, I might add. And then I got
really crazy.
“I’ll do you one better,” I shouted after Chris. “I’ll
create a character, but it’s not going to be a wizard.”
Chris threw his hands over his heart. “Whoa! Now
who’s talking crazy?”
I heated up my lunch, barricaded myself in my
cubicle, and got to work. Hmm ... whatever shall I
play next?
Eenie meenie miney mo,
Your next character will be a…
Rogue!
(Yeah, I know that’s lame. Just go with it, OK? It’s
the holidays.)
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Interesting. I’ve never played a rogue, but I have
been called “shifty” many times. Ten minutes later
I hadn’t finished my cup of peas, but my unaligned
female elf thief was in my arsenal. Holy moley, I did
it! I made a character using a book and a pencil.
Waving my freshly minted character sheet at
Chris, I shouted, “Meet Tumbilina! She’s my new
rogue. Hear that? Rogue!
“Tumbilina? I take it she’s trained in acrobatics?”
Chris asked, looking over my character sheet. “Well
done. So nice to meet you, Tumbilina. Kill you later.”
On Wednesday, we gathered in our usual con-
ference room, where Tumbilina met her fellow
adventurers for the first time.
“Berry White was called away on important wiz-
ardly business,” Chris told the group. “So you have a
new friend.”
“Her name is Tumbilina. Elf thief,” I said, waiting
for a reaction.
“Thief?” Laura asked. “Well, well, well.”
“Wizards are so 2010,” I said, waving her off.
“Rogues are what’s on trend.”
The encounter picked up where we left off.
“You enter a large chamber,” Chris began. “Dim,
blue light along the Dwarven runes illuminates four
alcoves. There is a huge statue of a dwarf brandish-
ing a f lail in one hand and an oversized iron key in
the other.”
The group was still. No one spoke. We just looked
at each other and when that got awkward, at our dice,
then at the map spread out on the table.
Chuck pulled out his iPhone. “Maybe there’s a
Twitter buff we can use.” The stillness of the room
made me uncomfortable and drew attention to the
sound of tin foil unwrapping from my lunch.
C o nfessi o ns o f a F u l l - time wizard
“That good?” Brian, our fill-in mage, asked, nod-
ding at my veggie burger.
“It’s OK,” I answered. Truthfully, it’s fantastic—
black bean veggie burger with a little tzatziki sauce,
feta, and alfalfa sprouts. Yum, yum! I kind of wished
I hadn’t tricked it up so much, because everyone was
staring at it with hungry, googly eyes.
“What?” I asked. “Do I have tzatziki on my face?”
They shook their heads.
“Well, then quit looking at my food!” I shouted. If I
were a dog at the animal shelter where I do volunteer
work, I would be labeled “food aggressive” and forced
to eat alone in my kennel. I would prefer that.
“We’re not looking at your food, Tumbles,” Chuck
said. “We’re waiting on you to make a move.”
“I’m not sharing.”
“I’d rather eat this playmat than that thing,” Brian
said. “We want you to make a move in the game. You’re
a rogue, right?”
“Right. Of course I am! Sorry guys, I’m new at this
rogue business.”
OK, I told myself, breathe. You can do this. Just think,
what did rogues do in my previous games? Snuck
up on things. Stabbed things in the back. Unlocked
doors. Disarmed traps. I could do this. Chris men-
tioned the dwarven statue, so I started there.
“Tumbilina wants to check out the statue,” I told
Chris.
Uh oh. There’s that smile again.
“As soon as Tumbilina approaches, the statue
comes to life, swinging its metal flail. It’s going to get
an opportunity attack.”
“Our rogue set off a trap,” Brian said. “Yeah!”
“You’re like the best rogue ever,” Laura said.
“What are you wearing? Light-up clown shoes?”
“Take thirteen damage,” Chris said. “And you slide
three squares.”
Three squares landed me back at the entrance
where the party was standing, still waiting for their
rogue to give them clearance. I imagined Tumbilina
all roughed up and battered, light-up sneakers still
pulsing away.
“Why hello there, Fumbilina,” laughed Marty, the
cleric. “Back so soon?”
Chris was really smiling then. “After the statue
attacked Tumbilina, you see three iron hammerers
emerge from the alcoves. And they look really, really
mad.”
“I’m … uh … bloodied, by the way,” I said.
Quinn, the human fighter, went next. He activated
defender aura on the statue. He hit.
“I’ll use my long sword,” Laura said, and of course
rolled a 19.
No one bothered to do the math on that one.
“Yeah, that’ll hit,” Chris said.
Marty went next. “Here’s a healing word for you,
Tumbilina. Take the change out of your pockets
before you go sneaking up on things.”
Whatever. I took his six hit points. And his advice,
because my turn was next.
“So now that the statue is wide awake and well
aware of our presence, I see no reason not to attack it.”
I used my ambush trick and pulled out my short
sword. I rolled a three.
“And she trips over a shoelace,” Brian
commentated.
“Do clown shoes have shoelaces?” Laura asked.
“Sure they do,” said Chris. “Usually red ones.” He
played a clown in some high school play.
“Use elven accuracy,” Marty stage whispered.
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This time I rolled a 2. A 2! Who does that? I’m not
even good at being an elf!
Then it was Brian’s turn. Seeing him wedged hap-
pily in the corner, pulling magic missiles and beguiling
strands out of his robes, filled me with something. I
want to blow several things up at once! I want to stand in
the background! I want to use a power that has auto-hit.
Uh oh. I had mage envy.
“How about I just stand here and make ghost
sounds,” Brian said. “Oooooooohhhh …”
“Don’t make fun!” I shouted. “Ghost sounds, if used
correctly, can be a very useful tool. Tabitha once sent
a whole pack of orcs running down the staircase by
scaring the pants off of them with a little old-fash-
ioned haunting.”
“Okay, okay. Won’t do that.” He scanned the
powers on his character sheet. “How about hitting
those two hammerheads with my arc lightning?”
Marty lit up. “Arc lightning, go arc lightning!” Of
course the whole table joined in.
I was beside myself. “Your blasé approach to the
arcane arts is disheartening. The wizard plays a
very powerful and necessary role. If you can’t take
that seriously, then maybe someone else should play
that part.”
“Oh really?” Brian smiled. “Did you have anyone
in mind?”
“No,” I said. “Not really.”
Later in the encounter, Tumbilina tried to steal
the key from the statue, but the eight I rolled meant
she overshot the distance and face-planted in a pile of
rubble. Chris only doled out six points of damage. I’m
pretty sure it should have been more.
“Aren’t you trained in Acrobatics?” Laura asked.
“And Thievery?” added Brian.
C o nfessi o ns o f a F u l l - time wizard
“Are you guys trained in being jerks?” Jeez. Can’t a
rogue have a bad day?
Tumbilina finished the encounter prone. Yes. I was
that awesome.
Chris and I returned to our desks, where we sit
separated by a six-inch wall.
“You know,” he said, “sometimes the dice don’t do
you any favors.”
“Well yours always seem indebted to you,” I noted.
Once he scored four critical hits in one encounter!
“Maybe a rogue’s not the right role for you,” he
continued. “Just like not everyone is meant to be a
wizard.”
Ain’t that the truth!
“Not to get all blamey, but I totally would have
done an Arcana check as soon as we got into the
chamber,” I said.
“And if you did, you totally would have noticed the
statue reeked of magic and would likely attack the
party if you got too close.”
I was reminded of something someone very wise
once wrote*—If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
So, Tumbilina might not have been the sneakiest
of rogues, but it was a fun experiment. I came. I saw. I
set off a trap.
“Next week, I think I’ll go back to my mage roots,”
I said.
“That,” Chris smiled, “is an excellent idea.”
*see above
About the Author
Shelly Mazzanoble resolves to be the best wizard in the
whole, wide world. And maybe clean out her closets.
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Far-Go is dying . . . the people are afraid . . . the animals are
wasting away . . . the crops are withering in the fields. No
one, not even the powerful high priest, Arx Skystone, knows
what has caused Far-Go’s misfortune.
As we’ve mentioned, we have a good reason to
release Famine in Far-Go and Legion of Gold for D&D
Gamma World: These were the first adventures for
the original edition of the game. The latest Famine
in Far-Go, which comes out this month, has seen sig-
nificant story alterations. These alterations include
inf luences from another adventure, as well. This
adventure is the most famous science-fiction adven-
ture of all time, in fact—at least, in the context of the
Dungeons & Dragons® game.
TM & © 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC. All rights reserved.
D&D Alumni
Barrier
Peaks
By Bart Carroll
Illustration by Bill Willingham
Today, we look at the original Famine in Far-Go,
as well as how Expedition to the Barrier Peaks impacts
the new version, and ways you might now run
Barrier Peaks in your D&D campaign. It’s Gamma
World, after all, so anything is possible . . . but defi-
nitely weird.
The Original
Famine in Far-Go
As can be expected from the original adventure
module, there’s a famine, in Far-Go, and the heroes
are tasked with finding its salvation. A fair bit of
railroading takes place in terms of the heroes’ shared
origins: They’re youths sent out from their community
on a Rite of Adulthood. This Rite happens to involve
investigating a meteor crash (well, meteorite, at
that point) that appears to have caused the famine.
The heroes visit a chicken processing factory along
the way. The place is the lair of the famed one-eyed
mutant chickens: the gallus gallus. (A more com-
prehensive summary can be read at the inimitable
grognardia.com).
Of more interest to me personally was the wilder-
ness encounter along the way with a pack of badders
(or would that be a cete of badders?) who worship
an image of University of Wisconsin’s mascot, Bucky
Badger—their supreme deity and protector. I attended
UW myself, and with TSR based nearby in Lake
Geneva, Wisconsin, they must have appreciated the
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in-joke. I’d also like to point out that at the time of
writing, UW has just knocked off #1 Ohio State and
#15 Iowa in back-to-back wins. (Update: and has
since been invited to the Rose Bowl.) Before anyone
from Ohio or Iowa disparages that accomplishment,
be warned that this would bring down the wrath of
the entire pack of badders.
Success in the original adventure hinged on
defeating the gallus gallus and supplying the process-
ing factory’s computer with fuel from the meteorite.
The computer, in turn, would supply Far-Go with
(what else?) a 6-month supply of processed chicken
patties, thus ending the famine. Exploring the factory
to defeat the gallus gallus involved use of color-coded
ID cards, necessary to enter different parts of the
facility. Which sounds like another sci-fi adventure
(which we’ll get to in just a moment).
The Original Ship
The original Barrier Peaks ship was also populated by
a number of creatures, including will-o’-wisps and
displacer beasts—suitably alien, since both were also
encountered in A.E. van Vogt’s 1950 novel The Voyage
of the Space Beagle (yes, that’s a pun on Darwin’s ship,
the HMS Beagle; and yes, both were also an influence
on Dragon’s Voyage of the Princess Ark . . . there’s a lot
of circularity in this month’s article). Displacer beasts
greatly resembled the novel’s coeurl, not to men-
tion (in this author’s humble opinion) Avatar’s recent
6-limbed, pantherlike thanators.
A New Famine in Far-Go
Without spoiling too much of the adventure, the new
version of Famine in Far-Go still features a famine . . .
in Far-Go. This time, the meteorite has changed to a
crashed spaceship that has released a host of horrors,
including russet mold, vegepygmies, and the dread
froghemoth.
Which sounds like that sci-fi adventure again. . . .
Yes, as even designer Robert Schwalb has admit-
ted, this Famine in Far-Go allowed him to bring
elements of Expedition to the Barrier Peaks back into
the game.
Expedition to
the Barrier Peaks
And here we come to the adventure that many
remember for bringing sci-fi to D&D. In our interview
with James M. Ward, he discussed the intersection
between Barrier Peaks and Metamorphosis Alpha—an
intersection specifically laid out in the opening of
Barrier Peaks’ re-release:
This module was begun early in 1976 when TSR
was contemplating publication of a science fantasy
role playing game. Jim Ward had already shown us
some rough notes on Metamorphosis Alpha. I thought
it would be a splendid idea to introduce Jim’s game at
Origins II, and introduce the concept to D&D play-
ers by means of the tournament scenario. I laid out
the tournament from old “Greyhawk Castle” cam-
paign material involving a spaceship, and Rob Kuntz
helped me to populate the ruined vessel. Both this
scenario and Metamorphosis Alpha proved successful,
but while the latter has been continually available
since mid-1976, only a few copies of the tourna-
ment dungeon used for Origins II have been around.
Barrier Peaks
Metamorphosis Alpha is currently being rewritten and
expanded for a major new edition, and (the) Gamma
World game is highly popular too. Since this module
offers a unique and challenging blend of fantasy and
science fantasy role playing, it seemed logical to rein-
troduce it to the public.
You can see quite a collision of inf luences
within Barrier Peaks. It too featured colored cards
used to access various parts of the ship. Scattered
throughout the ship were creatures associated with
Metamorphosis Alpha (lizardoids, baboonoids, mad
robots), the more alien creatures of Dungeons &
Dragons (a Swamp Thing/Man-Thing-esque sham-
bling mound, an intellect devourer—and what could
be more alien than a mind f layer?), and even some
classics of D&D (a bulette, umber hulk, and even
trappers, lurkers above, and rot grub . . . or gotcha,
gotcha, and gotcha, respectively).
I would argue that the sheer joy and nostalgia
surrounding Expedition to the Barrier Peaks never
came from the design of the ship itself (a leveled,
open-ended affair) or from the storyline (there
wasn’t one). Arguably, there was that single mind
f layer near the end, but he hardly constituted an
epic villain to conquer. The adventure itself ended
abruptly with the heroes being unceremoniously
dumped out of the cargo hold along with a dazed
bulette—hilariously illustrated, but not the most
dramatic of conclusions.
Rather, enjoyment came from the simple thrill
of exploring a spaceship in a Dungeons & Dragons
game, searching for the different colored cards to
access the different sections, and—best of all—figur-
ing out how to use the advanced weaponry against a
strange host of robots and creatures.
All of which can be replicated in your game.
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Crashing Spaceships
into D&D
We’ve belabored this analogy (yet still use it): Barrier
Peaks crashed sci-fi into D&D’s fantasy. If you’re look-
ing to do the same, the following presents a few ideas
for how to accomplish it. It’s ground we’ve covered
before, but still love to consider.
The Premise
Much like we stated in Against the Cult of the Reptile
God, a faithful recreation of the original adventure
is less useful than using the adventure as a template.
“Barrier Peaks” as a place and adventure concept
can be placed anywhere you wish in your world. A
mysterious ship has crashed somewhere in the moun-
tains of your world, slightly buried over time until
its entrance resembles that of any other cave—until
your players’ characters are called to investigate and
quickly realize this adventure is going to be different.
You might even start with the original premise; to
paraphrase:
A local duchy has recently been plagued by a
rash of unusually weird and terrible monsters of
unknown sort. This western area, particularly the
mountain fastness bordering the duchy (known as
the Barrier Peaks), has long been renowned for the
generation of the most fearsome beasts, and it has
been shunned accordingly.
Within the last few months, however, a walled
town not far distant from the area, and four small
fortresses as well, were destroyed by mysterious
attacks! The remaining barons and lords have pre-
served in brine several partially decomposed corpses
found on or near the sites of the ravaging. While
these strange bodies are assumed to have belonged
to the forces which were responsible for the destruc-
tion, the remains were too far gone to learn anything
other than they were of creatures heretofore
unknown to even the wisest sages. The urgent plea
for aid which accompanied these gruesome corpses
could not be ignored.
It has been learned that several unconfirmed
reports have related that monsters have been dis-
gorged from a gated cave at random intervals. The
entrance to this place is high upon a rocky face, and
sheathed in armor. This protection has purportedly
frustrated all attempts to explore the space beyond
the metal valve—although several search parties have
entirely disappeared, so it is possible they entered
but never returned. Your expedition must find out
exactly what this cave is, what is causing the mon-
sters to come forth, who is responsible, and how to
prevent future incursions. In addition, any other
information regarding this mysterious locale, its
strange denizens, magical devices, or unusual weap-
onry is highly desirable.
Your party set forth a week ago, and for the past
two days have been climbing higher into the crags of
the Barrier Peaks. Last night was spent in the keep
of the only baron remaining in the area—and he was
fulsome glad for your company. This morning, as the
eastern horizon turned from pearl gray to rosy pink,
a score of the baron’s retainers guided the expedition
towards the unknown area. It is now afternoon, and
you have set up camp in a hidden dell but a few bow-
shots from the strange entrance. The men-at-arms
have been detailed to guard the supplies and mounts
at the camp while you go onward immediately. They
will await your return for four full days before return-
ing to the keep.
Barrier Peaks
Gathering your personal gear, you are now climb-
ing the steep slope of the dell’s north side, passing the
rim, and forcing your way through a dense growth
of trees and undergrowth. There, across a field and
beyond a rocky rise, awaits adventure. . . .
The Ship
To recreate the interior of the spaceship, plunder
freely from the Gamma World poster maps, supple-
mented by dungeon tiles (dungeon corridors standing
in for metal hallways of the crashed ship; round tower
pieces from the Arcane Towers set serving for rooms
bordering the ship’s hull). This also works especially
well using Star Wars Galaxy Tiles.
Using your maps and tiles, caves and caverns can
become large gardens, zoological decks, and other
open spaces. d20 Modern’s Critical Locations fea-
tured a wealth of maps that you can use for interior
pieces, since the original ship featured libraries,
game rooms, gymnasiums, a large theater and
auditorium—even bars and cocktail lounges (those
aliens f lew in style).
Populate these areas as you see fit, assuming that
D&D creatures once contained on the zoological
deck have broken free. Naturally, pilfer freely from
the new Gamma World material, as well. Along with
robots, Famine in Far-Go provides statistics for the
vegepygmies, the froghemoth, and zombified crea-
tures infected with russet mold—and these monster
stats are completely compatible for D&D adventures.
You even have stats for “visitors” in case you wish to
include aliens that have somehow survived in stasis
(and might be freed by the characters—inadvertently
or otherwise).
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 Barrier Peaks

Those Wonderful Toys If you’re planning to run a Barrier Peaks-style

game, have fun with it. We would love to hear how
Let’s get to the part of Barrier Peaks that players
it goes. As an added challenge, we’re also providing
remember best of all—finding those wonderful
the stats for the original power armor, the most cov-
sci-fi weapons and armor. This is also fairly easy to
eted item in the entire adventure. The armor offered
recreate: Gamma World, with its compatible rules,
so many tricks that it’s impossible to express with a
provides the tools to help do so. Instead of the usual
single Alpha Tech card. However, if you have a write-
treasure parcels, place Omega Tech cards around
up of your own for the suit, we’d love to see it; send
the ship; they replicate many of the items from
your power armor design to dndinsider@wizards.com,
Barrier Peaks: blaster rif les, ray guns, energy weap-
and we’ll publish our favorite!
ons—and, of course—power armor. You can also
add several advanced suits, including the heavy-lift About the Author
harness (coincidentally showcased in Nodwick’s lam- Bart Carroll is neither the result of genetic experimentation
pooning of Barrier Peaks). Plus, since this is a crashed by some insane wizard, nor a nightmarish creature loath-
some beyond description (though he has been called both); a
ship with potentially leaking fuels and hazards, it
medium natural humanoid, he joined Wizards of the Coast
seems like a perfect excuse to also introduce Alpha in the spring of 2004. Originally producing their licensed
Mutation cards (and the mechanics of Alpha Flux) property websites (including Star Wars and G.I. Joe), he tran-
as well. sitioned to the D&D website, where he’s remained part of the
D&D Insider Team. In this role, he generates website content
In the original Barrier Peaks (and Gamma World in support of the 4th Edition line of products, the online mag-
as well), sci-fi items required a byzantine process azines, and the gamer lifestyle—of which he is an extremely
to figure out their use, occasionally resulting in the proud adherent.
death of the user. These items were also limited by
their number of charges. Although Omega Tech
items are balanced in game terms (albeit slightly at
the higher end), you might wish to employ similar
methods to discourage their general infiltration into
your campaign. Perhaps, as with drow gear that once
dissipated in sunlight, Barrier Peaks’ items function
only within the ship (where a stasis field keeps them
constantly charged).
Then again—and we’d like to end on this, emphati-
cally—the point of Expedition to the Barrier Peaks has
always been a break from the norm. We say you
should let your characters find and use these items
freely, at least within the context of the adventure. Let
them experience mutations aboard the ship.

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